


a really good deal on craigslist

by heyfightme



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Bad Jokes, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, New Girl au, One Night Stands, Recreational Drug Use, Romantic Comedy, Roommates, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2019-10-10 03:55:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17418629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyfightme/pseuds/heyfightme
Summary: “So, anyway,” Bitty continues, bright as he can, “it was like when you’re a teenager and your Moo Maw tells you to always wear clean underwear, in case you get hit by a bus? Except I wasn’t wearing any underwear at all, and instead of a bus it was my boyfriend fuckin’ somebody else.”“My moo-what now?” the clipboard guy mutters.“I think it’s some kind of hillbilly thing,” the glasses guy retorts.When Eric Bittle catches his boyfriend cheating on him in their own home, he takes to Craigslist to find replacement accommodation -- and ends up in a loft with three men, one of whom may have been put on this Earth to test him.A Check, Please! New Girl AU





	1. go and get your stuff

**Author's Note:**

> I started this so long ago. So long ago, in fact, that I posted the first chapter and had every intention of turning it into a serial. But then time went by, and it was sitting there embarrassingly unfinished, so I deleted the post and figured I'd just forget about it. I didn't forget about it.
> 
> This AU is inspired by the TV show _New Girl_ , in both loose and specific ways. I guess it's more of an homage than anything else. What it is supposed to be, above all else, is a near-farcical romantic comedy, in which two grade-A idiots fall in love.
> 
> Hopefully, you get a chuckle out of it.
> 
> A playlist for this work can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/whyfrenchfry/playlist/4G4X8VW8F19imQWRua3Vxr?si=4XvOWuIPSOmCCfEfFI8UVA). Play it in order, and it should get you in the mood.

 

The apartment is the kind of place Bitty had imagined as a fifteen-year-old, dreaming of getting out of Georgia: an exposed brick wall; large open-plan living space; a kitchen island that beckons with all the allure of a white-sand beach with palm trees and Mai Tais and a shirtless bartender.

 

There is the smell, though. Locker-room sweaty, with undernotes of Axe body-spray. There is also a child-sized set of hockey goals against the far wall, and the heinous couch on which Bitty is currently sitting. It’s green, maybe. That could just be the color of the fungus covering the fabric. The rest of the apartment, though, is generally clean.

 

Bitty looks back to the two guys sitting across from him. One has a clipboard in his lap. The other is regarding Bitty over the top of a pair of glasses pushed to the very end of his nose. They have twinned raised-eyebrows, slack-jawed expressions, dripping expectation. Bitty shakes himself.

“So, anyway,” he continues, bright as he can, “it was like when you’re a teenager and your Moo Maw tells you to always wear clean underwear, in case you get hit by a bus? Except I wasn’t wearing any underwear at all, and instead of a bus it was my boyfriend fuckin’ somebody else.”

 

“My moo-what now?” the clipboard guy mutters.  
“I think it’s some kind of hillbilly thing,” the glasses guy retorts. They’re both equally bad at being discreet, and when Glasses raises his voice to address Bitty again, it’s overly-loud. “I asked you if you had a problem with loud music.”

Bitty blinks.

“Oh, of course not. I’ll probably just be playing _4_ and _Self-Titled_ on repeat until I work my way from depression and bargaining to anger… then I’ll transition to _Lemonade_. So I hope y’all don’t mind a bit of Bey.”

“Actually, anger comes before depression.” Clipboard’s eyes widen after the words leave his mouth, and he shakes his head in a shell-shocked way. “Why am I encouraging this?”

“Well I’m definitely not at the anger stage yet,” Bitty reasons, gazing back over to the kitchen. All that bench space. Enough bench space to stretch filo pastry. Enough bench space to lie face-down and sob into the polished oak. “I’m at the stage where I just want to bake a pie, and then watch someone eat that pie, and have them tell me how good the pie was. And then do it all again.”

 

He looks back to the two guys, and finds their bewilderment has washed over into unconcealed delight: wide-mouth grins, and eager perches on the very edges of their lawn chairs.

“Did you say pie?”

 

\---

 

Bitty’s new bedroom has a closet that he can walk in to, but not walk around in. It has a window that runs the length of one wall, but at a height four inches above Bitty’s eye level. His two new roommates are named Ransom (Clipboard) and Holster (Glasses), and Bitty is thankful that his nickname had been pre-applied by his own best friend.

 

In his new bedroom, he has: a sleeping bag borrowed from said best friend, that smells faintly of weed; a set of mini speakers and an old iPod that occasionally makes an unexplained popping noise midway through a song; only three different shirts, one of which is an old Thrashers jersey from when he was thirteen. It’s a little snug, which is probably why Ransom frowns at him when Bitty comes out of his room wearing it, three days after moving in.

 

“Most of my stuff is at my place. Well now I guess it’s my ex-boyfriend’s place, huh?” Bitty forces out a laugh, and punches the ball of bread dough he’s kneading. He had been right; the kitchen island is perfect for pastry-making. “I’ll get it all. I will. I’m missing so many button-downs, and at least a dozen pairs of shorts. And, like, with winter coming up I might even need a cardigan at some point.” He picks up the dough and throws it down to the countertop. Ransom flinches, then goes back to staring at the logo on Bitty’s chest. “And my bakeware! I mean, I could have grabbed it all on my way out, but who knew I’d move into a house of heathens who don’t even own a basic set of metric measuring cups, let alone a fluted pie tin?” He slaps the dough against the counter again, and punctuates it with another barked laugh. Ransom takes a long sip of his coffee. He doesn’t say anything. Bitty narrows his eyes.

 

“What?”

Ransom snorts into his mug. When he emerges, his eyes are wide and wary.

“Nothing. I – nothing. Not a one thing.”

“You want to say something.”

“What? No, no way.” Ransom’s voice has gone high and strained. He wipes a hand across his mouth. “I don’t know you, man. That’s not my role. Holster’s the nosy one, but – and you don’t know this, because you just moved in – but I’m the one who fixes after Holster’s been all nosy. So I’m not going to – yeah, I have nothing to say.”

Bitty scoops up his dough and rolls it between his palms.

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right; I did just move in. Which means that you don’t know me either, Ransom. You don’t know that I am what we in the South refer to as ‘more stubborn than a mule.’”

“I think that’s just a regular saying that people use everywhere.” Bitty ignores this interjection.

“My point being, that if you don’t tell me what you were going to say, I will ride you but good until you give it up.”

 

Ransom presses his lips together, tightly. He is visibly straining against something, obvious comments pushing against his closed mouth. He tries to speak a few times, but ends up clamping his hand over his mouth and nodding. After taking a breath, he nods again.

“Okay, uh. Bitty, fine. But you got to promise me, man – don’t say that to anyone ever again. You can’t go around telling people you’re going to ride them. It will get you nowhere you want to be; trust me.” Bitty frowns at him, but Ransom doesn’t seem to want to elaborate on that. “So, I have two things: the first is, is that a hockey jersey?”

Bitty looks down at his own chest.

“Oh, yeah. I know it’s small, but I panicked when I was leaving Barry’s house and I just grabbed the first thing I saw. I should have gotten some t-shirts, or a polo or something, but I just – I was freaking out, and my brain was like, ‘oh, what if you have to go to an early 2000s costume party?’ and I said to myself, ‘well I could go as Kuni from the two weeks he was signed to the Thrashers.’ And then I got here, and I was unpacking my bag, I realized, ‘Bittle, you ding dong. Kuni didn’t even see any ice with the Thrashers. You’d be better off saying you’re dressed as Andrew Ladd. At least he was a Captain.’”

 

Ransom is staring at him. His eyes, impossibly, are even wider than before. His expression is otherwise startlingly blank, almost as though his brain has short-circuited. After a moment, he clears his throat.

“You – uh. You know hockey? You’re from the South, and you’re, um – you’re.” Ransom coughs again, and leans heavily on the kitchen bench. He doesn’t seem to pay any mind to the flour scattered across it. “You picked up that old Atlanta Thrashers jersey from your ex-boyfriend’s house, because you’re… you know hockey.”

Bitty shrugs in a would-be indifferent manner, his mind’s eye playing relentless flashbacks of probing conversations from disbelieving guys in all sorts of bars.

“I was on the team in college.”

 

Ransom makes an interested noise, a strange seal-like whine, and stands up abruptly.

“The second thing is that our fourth roommate is flying back tonight from visiting his parents. You’ll meet him in the morning.”

He turns and walks stiffly toward his bedroom, leaving Bitty with his fingers deep in dough and an itchy feeling on the back of his neck.

 

\---

 

The fourth roommate arrives on the red eye while Bitty is asleep, from somewhere Ransom and Holster are very cagey about. Although Bitty hasn’t spoken to or seen him yet, there is only one thing he personally wants after a late night and a long flight: a hearty, home-made, protein-packed breakfast of champions. With plans for oven-baked eggs, accompanied by smoothies made from the bananas he’d noticed in a bowl on the kitchen counter, Bitty wakes up with the sun and steps into the shower to make himself first impression-ready.

 

He has shampoo in his hair, and the water on as hot as it will go, and is belting out ‘Halo’ over the thunder of the spray, block of soap serving as an ample microphone. With Ransom and Holster’s rooms at the other end of the apartment, his shower singing isn’t usually an issue. On this morning, however, the shower curtain gets ripped back with a yelled, “who the fuck?” to reveal a man with rage in his eyes and a spectacular case of bedhead. He has the stubbled jaw of overnight travel, and the obvious musculature of someone who might dead-lift couches for fun.

 

What Bitty could say to defuse the situation – the situation being he is wet and naked, and the man who doesn’t like his singing is radiating waves of precise anger – is something breezy like, “hello, roomie!”

 

What Bitty says instead is, “You’re Stanley Cup Winner Jack Zimmermann.”

 

It’s because his third roommate is, to Bitty’s observance, Stanley Cup Winner Jack Zimmermann.

 

Stanley Cup Winner Jack Zimmermann’s face turns an unprecedented shade of pale with disturbing rapidity. His mouth works silently for a few moments, before he turns on his heel and storms from the room. He leaves the door open behind him.

 

Bitty quickly rinses the suds from his hair and extracts himself from the shower, somehow without slipping, and dries himself off before trotting into the kitchen draped in Holster’s bathrobe – the kitchen, where Jack Zimmermann is standing across from Ransom and Holster, and saying, “I had one request – no hockey fans. It’s literally the easiest thing. I’m starting to think you both just deliberately ignore what I say.” He plants both hands on the kitchen island and hangs his head between his shoulders; his t-shirt pulls across his back, and Bitty feels an inopportune tug in the depths of his gut. “It’s as though,” Jack Zimmermann continues, “you actually enjoy my pain.”

 

Bitty swallows.

“Morning, y’all!” His voice comes out overly-loud, and mildly sing-song, and Jack Zimmermann’s entire body seems to tense. “Thought I’d better come out and introduce myself properly – now that I’m not, y’know, completely naked and trying to bathe – and then I can make you boys some of my famous baked eggs.” Bitty advances on his newest roommate, schools his expression into something as nonchalant as he can, and extends his hand from within the droopy sleeves of his borrowed robe. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Eric Bittle – but everyone calls me Bitty – and I’d like to point out that I am being _extremely_ chill about the fact that a professional hockey player just saw my doojer and my chickadees.”

“I’m sorry, your _what_ now?”

Holster’s incredulity goes largely unnoticed, with Jack Zimmermann glaring at Bitty’s hand like he’s being offered a dead rat to hold, and Ransom fighting back a smile and raising his voice, tone dripping barely-restrained amusement.

“You know that by pointing out you were chill, you’re like… by definition not being chill, right?”

“I just want everyone to understand that I am unaffected by this. That it doesn’t matter to me that our fourth roommate is Stanley Cup Winner Jack Zimmermann. And it especially doesn’t matter that he’s seen my… y’know. My bits. _Bitty’s Bits_.” He puts a musical flourish on the term, like a radio jingle, though it doesn’t seem to dissipate any of the tension in the room. Hand thoroughly un-shaken, Bitty drops it and crosses to the fridge. His cheeks are burning, but the fridge is cold at least. “Now, I usually do my baked eggs with leek chopped up in it, but I haven’t had a chance to go grocery shopping yet and I don’t think you boys even know what a leek is. Aside from that leak from the sink in the bathroom, am I right?”

 

“I’m going to ignore the fact Bitty’s wearing my bathrobe – not cool, by the way. Bathrobe sharing is more of a ‘we’ve been living together for six months’ kind of sitch. But, uh, what I’m really concerned by is the fact that Jack has now seen the junk of everyone in this apartment, and yet none of us have seen what he’s working with. What’s up with that, Zimmermann?”

When Bitty chances a look over his shoulder, hands occupied by eggs, Jack Zimmermann is now glaring at Holster.

“You’re not going to start that again, are you? Because being able to pee without you bursting in and trying to look over my shoulder is actually very high on my priority list.” His eyes flick over to Bitty, and Bitty hurriedly ducks back into the fridge. “And I’d rather not have this conversation in front of a stranger.”

 

There are unprecedented hands on Bitty’s shoulders, straightening him up and forcibly turning him around. Ransom presents him to Jack Zimmermann like a showstopper cake, fists full of eggs.

“This is Bitty. We picked him for the empty room. He was recently cheated on. He bakes kickass pies and has made us every single meal for the past three days, and I swear to god Jack, if you tell me you want him to leave, I will spit in your stupid protein shakes every damn morning and you won’t be able to do a thing to stop me. I’ll spit when you’re not looking. You’ll have no idea I’ve done it.” Hands still on Bitty’s shoulders, Ransom leans down and puts his mouth by Bitty’s ear to address him. Despite the pretense, he makes no attempt to whisper, keeping his eyes fixed on Jack. “Bitty, this is Jack Zimmermann. Six months ago, he injured his knee and his secret lover dumped him, and he got kicked out of the NHL. You two have a lot in common.”

 

Jack continues to scan Bitty’s person with a surly trepidation. After a long moment of unbroken eye contact, though, he emits a grunt and looks away with folded arms.

 

“Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

It’s out of Bitty’s mouth before he can make any attempt to curtail it. The reactions are instantaneous: Holster and Ransom both hoot at the exact same time; Jack, on the other hand, snaps to looking at Bitty like a hound scenting blood. His expression, though, flickers with something which Bitty might interpret as a smile. Bitty feels his own eyebrows raise.

 

He says, “Eggs.”

 

In chopping tomatoes and lining the only ceramic dish in the kitchen with turkey bacon, Bitty is able to hide his burning face from the scrutiny of the boys. It doesn’t save him, though, from being their topic of conversation.

 

“Just, seeing as the gloves are apparently completely off this morning: what is up with this robe, Holster? I feel like Bitty’s about to flash us all some booty, or at the very least a wink from the one-eyed monster in the front –”

“ _Hey_ –” Bitty drops his knife and holds up a protesting finger to Ransom, who steamrolls on as though Bitty hadn’t said anything.

“—which means that on you, Holtzy, we’re talking cock out, bare ass. Man, please tell me you don’t sit on common furniture while wearing that thing.”  
“That is an authentic Japanese silk kimono, Justin, so don’t talk to me about common. You and your salmon shorts wouldn’t know sophistication if it snuck up behind you and tickled your weirdly hairless balls.” Holster turns to Jack, eyebrow raised pointedly. “See, chief? Ransom’s my friend, and I know what his junk looks like. Do you not appreciate my friendship the way he does?”

“Why do you want to see my penis, Holster?”

 

In spite of himself, Bittle giggles. When three pairs of eyes swivel to look at him, he wraps his arms around his middle.

 

The silence stretches, and Bitty eventually clears his throat.

“So, uh, here’s a fun question. Can I borrow some underwear from somebody?” He’s met with a chorus of groans from Ransom and Holster, and a flicker of a frown from Jack, but Bitty carries on. “Just because all mine are at Barry’s, and I can’t do the Lindsay Lohan thing again. Not after finding out what it’s really like to have a stranger see my, uh. My peen. _Bonjour, le peen_.” He affects a French accent, and mimes a mustache with his finger, but Jack’s face remains impassive.

“That’s not French,” he says.

Bitty stares at him.

 

“Okay, Bitty, again? I don’t feel I know you well enough to have you wearing my kimono. I definitely don’t want your dick in my undies. No offence.”

Ransom points to Holster in agreement, directing a significant nod at Bitty.

“Well then, what am I supposed to do? I don’t like the way my jeans feel without underwear in the way.”

 

“Hey, here’s an idea,” Jack interjects, voice flat and brow pulled low. “Go and get your stuff, Bittle.”

Bitty scoffs a laugh, as derisive as he can, shifting hands to his hips and jutting one out. Jack’s frown deepens.

“Yeah, sure thing, Jack Zimmermann. I’ll just hop on over to my ex-boyfriend’s house and collect all my possessions. Right.” Bitty turns back to the dish of eggs, and squirts an indiscriminate amount of Sriracha over the top. “Just going to Barry’s and getting my stuff? Please. Don’t be ridiculous.”

 

\---

 

The iPod Bitty had rescued from Barry’s house has a sizeable ding on its edge, and a streak of dead pixels on the screen. It is loaded up exclusively with songs from before 2008, which means Bitty doesn’t even have access to his breakup albums of choice.

 

He settles for playing _B’Day_ on repeat, and sobbing into slices of his pie du jour.

 

He’s lifting a shaky forkful to his mouth and scrolling through Barry’s twitter feed with his other hand, when Shitty calls. Leaving the music playing, Bitty rolls off his bed – more like _slides_ , given the slippery material of his borrowed sleeping bag – and shuts himself into his closet.

 

“Have you been murdered yet?”

Shitty’s voice comes through a little-overly loud and distorted by background chatter. Bitty heaves a wet sigh, and sinks to the ground to tuck his knees to his chest.

“No. They’re nice boys; I don’t think they’re going to murder me at all. They eat all my pies and keep buying fruit.” He reaches up an idle hand to tug at the sleeve of his hanging jersey. It now bore a blood-like stain across the front, from falling asleep on the floor while holding a glass of wine. “And Jack’s been trying to get me to go and get my stuff from Barry’s, so.”

This is a loose description of the way Jack had walked into the kitchen the previous morning to find Bitty preparing a crust, wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist while his meagre clothing collection was in the washer. He had barked, “Bittle, go and get your stuff,” before turning on his heel and stalking back to his room.

 

Bitty doesn’t mention that to Shitty, though. Neither does he mention the way Jack’s persistent glaring and guilt-inducing exercise regimen have pushed him to actually going for a run – even if he did return to the apartment only to engage in his new favorite activity of internet stalking his ex. He adds instead, “He’s been helping a lot with getting me up and around, actually.”

“Who the fuck does this joker think he is? That’s not his job; that’s my job.” Shitty sounds legitimately disgruntled. “Post-breakup healing is best friend territory, and here’s this upstart Craigslist psychopath trying to jump in my fucking grave like this isn’t what I have a PhD in.”

“You have a PhD in being a best friend?”

“Nah, I’m a doctor of Bittle-osophy. Bittle-ography?”

 

Bitty is chuckling, still a little damp and croaky, when the music playing in his room cuts off. He freezes.

“Shitty, there’s someone in my room.”

He keeps eyes trained on the closet door, listening for any signs of life outside of Shitty’s panicked hisses in his ear. When a broad voice calls out, “Bittle?” he sighs and hauls himself to his feet.

 

Sliding open the closet door gets Jack turning towards him in the center of the room, frown already affixed to his face.

“You were in the closet?” There’s a flicker of a raised eyebrow, and a bare current of irony in his tone. A hysterical laugh bubbles its way up in Bitty’s throat; he manages to disguise it in a cough.

“I thought I’d see if it had changed at all since I was last in there.”

Jack’s wry answering smile is like much of his happy expressions: brief, and so small that Bitty can’t be certain it’s not a twitch.

 

“I’m on the phone,” Bitty explains after a pause. Shitty’s tinny, “yeah, too right you are” hopefully goes unheard by Jack.

“The music was loud. And you weren’t in here. I, uh – I’m busy.” He shifts his weight between his feet, and folds his arms. “And you know, you should really go and get your stuff. If a burglar broke in here, they’d probably actually leave something behind because they felt sorry for you.” He casts a pointed look to the sleeping bag spread across Bitty’s mattress. There is a noticeable tear running along one of the seams, and it is patterned with little pot leaves.

 

“That’s easy for you to say, isn’t it? You don’t understand this situation at all, Jack Zimmermann. Not all of us can just Jean Claude Van Damme our feelings into submission. It’s like every human emotion you have is a bomb planted in Civic Arena, and you’re just running around defusing them all before they blow up the Stanley Cup.”

Jack opens his mouth to make some sort of retort, arms still decidedly folded, when Shitty screeches, “ _Jack Zimmermann?_ ” down the line and Bitty emits a startled yelp in response. He presses the phone back to his ear just as Shitty babbles, “fuck this, I’m coming over there” and hangs up. Bitty lowers the phone, and swallows deeply.

 

“So, you’re not too busy, I hope?”

 

\---

 

Shitty’s greeting of Jack swings between ecstatic and hostile with startling rapidity. Within two minutes of Bitty letting him into the apartment, he has threatened Jack with legal ruination on pain of Bitty’s wellbeing, and clasped him in a fierce-yet-brief hug while muttering about him being “a fuckin’ inspiration.” Jack endures the whole thing with a stoic sort of stiffness, only exacerbated when Ransom and Holster arrive back from running errands and take obvious delight in his discomfort.

 

“My dude, if you being here puts that lemon-sucking look on Jack’s face – uh, feel free to just make yourself at home.” Ransom extends a welcoming hand towards the couch, onto which Shitty plonks himself with general enthusiasm. “This is only really adding to the ‘Pros of Bitty Living Here’ list.”

“There’s a list?” Bitty barely gets it out before Shitty cuts across him.

“Here’s your GD pro list: you get to live with Bitty. What would even be a con of this situation?”

Ransom actually pulls his phone from his pocket, and taps a few times before saying, “Currently? One, showers too hot and fills the bathroom with steam. Two, doesn’t have any belongings. Three, plays the world wide woman too loudly. Four, looks at photos of Seggy on his phone too often.” He squints at the screen, before pocketing it again. “Truthfully, they were all submitted by Jack.”

 

Jack just grunts and folds his arms again, staring resolutely out the window and seeming to be deliberately avoiding Bitty’s incredulous glare. Holster scoffs, and drops next to Shitty on the couch to nudge him conspiratorially in the side.

“He complains about the music like he didn’t spend the month after he got here locked in his room listening to Phil Collins on repeat.” He throws Jack a theatrically disgusted expression. “I heard you make noises I didn’t know a human man was capable of.”

“This isn’t – I always had my own underwear.” Holster mutters, “good for you, big boy,” but Jack ignores him and continues on. “I’m feeling like a broken record. Bittle, you need to go and get your stuff. You can’t keep – towels and sleeping bags aren’t clothes. You’ve washed your briefs every single day this week. I know that, because I tried to use the washer yesterday and couldn’t because a single pair of turquoise Y-fronts were spinning around in there.”

 

Bitty feels heat rush its way into his cheeks, and scoffs loudly in what he intends to be a derisive way.

“Mr. Know-It-All here. No, see, I can’t go to Barry’s house to get my stuff, because –”

“Hold up,” Holster interjects, leaning around Shitty to fix narrowed eyes on Bitty where he’s standing, “you were being serious? His name’s Barry. And your name’s Bitty. Bitty and Barry?”

Bitty blinks at him. “Yes?”

Holster nods, and sinks back into the couch. “Continue.”

“So I can’t just go and get my stuff, because he’s so tall. He’s just so tall, you guys. And I’ll see him, being all tall, and I’ll just be like… ‘damn, I want to climb that tall, tall boy like he’s a coconut tree and I’m a crab, going after his nuts.’”

Ransom visibly shudders. “Disturbing.”

 

“C’mon, Bitty. We’re tall. Well, actually, I can’t speak for these two six-foot midgets, but I’m tall. You can control your urge to climb me, right?”

Holster stands up under Bitty’s shrewd gaze, puffing his chest out and jutting out his jaw as he affects a leery grin. Jack snorts, but when Bitty glances over to him, he’s still staring out the window.

“Holster, that’s actually a great idea.” Holster’s smirk takes on a panicked edge, and in his periphery Bitty notes Jack finally whipping to look at him. “You should all come with me! Like a protection detail. Protection detail from myself and my raging libido.”

 

There is a cacophony of protests from the four others, recognizable phrases being, “I’ve got that thing to go to,” and, “I was planning on making a sandwich.” Bitty crosses his arms and _tsks_ , executing his best impression of his own mother.

“If you come with me, I will bake you each something of your choice and you can eat it all yourself.”

The charge for the door contains proclamations like, “what are friends for?” and, “moving is my favorite thing to help with.”  With Ransom, Holster, and Shitty out in the hall, Bitty is left alone in the living room with Jack.

 

“If you come with us and do that angry look you’re so good at, I will wear headphones while listening to music all the time from now on. And I will ask if you need the washer before putting anything in there.” Jack is regarding him with mild interest, stance slightly more relaxed. His hands are in his pockets. “And I won’t sing in the shower for… for a whole week.”

Jack squints. “I don’t have an angry look.”

“You’re doing it right now.”

“This is just – it’s just my face. This is how my face looks.”

“Well, it is terrifying. No wonder you were leading the league in face-offs for all that time.”

 

Jack keeps squinting, but the corners of his mouth do twitch, as though he’s chewing back on something. Bitty affixes his most pleading look to his own face, smile small and genial, eyes wide and sheepish. Jack blinks.

“Alright. Come on. Let’s go get your underwear.”

 

It’s a bare thing that Bitty doesn’t pump his fist. What he does do, though, is blurt out a “yay!” that makes Jack visibly startle.

“Roommate road trip!”

“Don’t make me regret this, Bittle.”


	2. bitty and barry

Barry’s house has window boxes full of herbs: two varieties of basil; a verdant parsley bush; mint, and sage, and a luscious showing of tarragon. They are well cared-for, and tenderly loved. Every single leaf has been the recipient of the utmost of Bitty’s attentive affection. They are the sum of what Bitty had intended to be an extensive and fruitful kitchen garden – a plan which Barry had curtailed with his lawn chairs and backyard volleyball net.

 

“Do you think I could bring my window boxes with me?”

“Of fucking course, Bits. You grew those herbs yourself! What right does that jackoff have to freshly flavored food?”

Despite Shitty’s raucous approval, Jack – in the back seat, somehow squashed between Ransom and Holster, wearing a disgruntled expression – grunts.

“Window boxes? To put on what sills, Bittle?”

“Bitty, you can put ‘em out on the balcony. _Ow_.”

Bitty flicks his gaze up to the rear-vision mirror to find Ransom clutching his stomach and glaring at Jack, who on the other hand is staring mildly out the window.

“Do I have to pull this car over? Don’t make me come back there.”

Jack’s eyes unhappily meet his in the mirror, and Bitty doesn’t notice that the car is drifting until Holster screams, high-pitched and hysterical. Bitty jerks the car back to his lane, hands clenched on the wheel.

 

“Oh my god, he’s going to kill us. Can his feet even reach the pedals? Are you old enough to hold a full license?”

Holster hisses the last question nearly in Bitty’s ear, leaning over the back of his seat. Bitty throws a hand back to blindly slap at him, and must make connection if Holster’s yelp of protest is any indication. Bitty turns up the radio, reasserting his grip on the wheel as Carly Rae Jepsen sings about running away. He presses down on the gas, the car lurching forward suddenly and causing a chorus of gripes from the backseat.

“Maybe don’t get pulled over, Bittle,” Jack mutters. Bitty ignores him.

“This is good. I’m getting pumped up! It’s a pregame. I’m invincible. Loud music!”

“Shit yeah, Bits. You’re going to go in there, get up in that cheating dickhead’s face, and get your stuff back.”

“Sure am. I’m going to be like, ‘Give me all my underwear, sweetheart.’”

“Maybe don’t call him ‘sweetheart’,” Ransom advises.

 

The house is rapidly approaching on the left, first thing visible to Bitty being the thriving lemon tree in the front yard. It had been the clincher when he and Barry had been looking for houses. Well, it had been the clincher for Bitty. Barry had been unmoved by the prospect of fresh citrus.

 

The house itself is also unchanged. Bitty had been expecting something else, on some level. For it to be replaced by a Scooby Doo haunted house, maybe. An outward reflection of the horrors inside.

“Alright, Bitty my dude, just ease her on up –”

Bitty mounts the curb, and the car jolts to a stop. It’s nerves. A collective sigh goes through the car, and Bitty turns off the ignition. Carly cuts off abruptly.

“Is that the house? It’s nice. Look at that, mission revival. Very adult. And now you’re living in a loft? Seems like a backslide, Bitty.”

There’s a dull thud from the backseat which Bitty guesses to be someone hitting Holster on the back of the head.

“You know what, y’all, it just doesn’t seem like he’s home. Maybe we should come back later.”

His weak protests are shouted down by everyone, in particular Shitty and Jack: “Fuck him up, man,” from the former, and “Bittle, go and get your stuff,” from the latter.

“Alright. I’m goin’. I’m out.”

 

He nearly stumbles out of the car, impeccable balance being the only thing stopping him from sprawling across the grass. The long walk up to the front door, he takes with a stiff back and the urge to run back to the car, supportive whooping from its inhabitants be damned.

 

The doorbell is the same too: ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’, chosen by Barry. Bitty almost presses it again, but then. The door is opening, and Barry is there.

 

He is another thing that hasn’t changed. He is still wearing cargo shorts. He still has the puka shell necklace. His deep v-neck tan lines are still visible around his tank top. He is also still immensely tall. Bitty swallows.

“Hi, Barry.”

“Er-Bear. You didn’t say you were coming.”

“I just… I want. I’m here for my stuff.”

“It’s good to see you. I’ve been thinking about you.” Barry takes a step forward, arms reaching out and already folding Bitty against his chest. “I miss you.”

When Bitty’s own arms come up to lock around Barry’s waist, he knows he isn’t imagining the chorus of groans that come from the car behind him.

“I came for my underwear,” he says into Barry’s pectorals, and gets a pat on the head for his troubles.

 

“Eric Bitty Bittle, step away from the muscles.” This comes from Shitty, who has apparently left the car and come to offer his support. Bitty does as he says, retreating from Barry’s grasp and stepping down from the stoop. It seems that Shitty is joined by Ransom, Holster, and even Jack, all wearing appropriately disapproving expressions and standing folded-arms and stiff-backs like bouncers at the door of a club.

 

“Hi Shitty,” Barry says.

“Hi, Chucklefuck,” Shitty replies.

“Woah, now. What’s with the animosity, brah?”

The question makes Bitty’s neck prickle. Before Shitty can reply, he’s stepping up in Barry’s space and aiming a light shove at his chest.

“Animosity? You fucked some guy! In our bed!”

“His name is Søren.”

“Was he a Viking?” comes hissed from Ransom, but Bitty ignores him.

“I’m getting my stuff, sweetheart,” Bitty spits, and shoulders his way past Barry’s bulk into the house.

 

He doesn’t realize that the guys are following him, until Jack asks, “Bittle, where’s your room?”

“Down the hall, on the left.” Shitty and Jack divert to follow the directions, while Bitty makes a beeline for the kitchen.

 

It is not as he left it: there is a pile-up of dishes in and around the sink, and the distinctly funky smell of microwaved cheese. Thankfully, none of his bakeware or pots seem to have been used. He takes the laundry tub from where it sits on the breakfast table, dumping all of Barry’s dirty laundry in its place, and starts to fill the tub with his kitchenware.

“Woah. Gross,” Ransom comments from the doorway.

“I always did the dishes. And the laundry. And the cooking. And the garden. I think Barry washed a pair of socks, like, once.”

“Is he a college freshman?” Ransom asks mildly, stepping forward to pick up the laundry tub from the floor.

“I’m getting my herbs,” Bitty tells him.

 

The backyard is starting to get overgrown, the grass already a good few inches high around the poles of the volleyball net. There are empty beer bottles littering the patio table. What Bitty is looking for, though, is the kitchen windows and their fertile, lush, beautiful window boxes.

 

What he finds is withered. Burnt out. Crispy from the LA sun.

 

All the herbs are dead.

 

Bitty doesn’t realize he’s yelling until the guys appear at the back door all at once, Barry looming behind them.

“You!” Bitty throws an accusing finger at Barry, his voice coming out dark and low. “You murderer.”

“What? I didn’t do anything.” Barry’s voice is defensive and almost whiny, and in that moment Bitty doesn’t know how he didn’t see this before: he was living with a child in the body of a man.

“Exactly. You didn’t do anything! You let them die.”

“Er-Bear, you know plants aren’t really my thing.”

Bitty yells again, launches himself at Barry, and the only thing that stops him from scratching Barry’s eyes out is Jack catching him around the middle and dragging him away.

“Let go of me, Jack Zimmermann! This is an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a fucking tooth.”

“I don’t want you going to jail on my conscience,” Jack mutters at him, and lifts him into the air when he starts trying to kick out his legs to reach Barry.

 

“You really are a moldy towel of a person, aren’t you, Bazza?” Shitty observes, coming to stand next to Bitty and Jack with his own threatening stance. Bitty stops kicking, chest heaving with heavy breaths, glare on his face in full force. They are joined as well by Ransom and Holster, arms folded as they join Bitty’s ranks.

“The guy grew those plants from scratch, Barry. He nurtured them like a little mother bird,” Ransom says, tone dripping with disapproval.

“He grew them from his own seed,” Holster adds.

Barry stares at Holster for a moment, before turning his wide eyes back on Bitty.

“Who are these guys, Eric?”

“They’re my roommates.”

“You’re living with these people? Er-Bear, come on. You can stay here, until you find somewhere better.”

“There’s nothing wrong with them.” Bitty is beyond kicking, so he gently prizes his way out of Jack’s grip. “They’re special boys.”

“Special in the head, maybe. Come on, Eric. They’re strangers.”

“No, they’re not. This is Ransom. He keeps the bathroom clean, and likes baked salmon with tomatoes, and owns more shorts than I do. That’s Holster, and he vacuums the apartment once a week, and lets me wear his bathrobe after I shower.”

“I think ‘let’ is too strong a word,” Holster interjects. Bitty ignores him.

“And this is Jack. He hates that I’m living in his apartment, but he’s still here. He does laundry for anyone that needs it, and he goes grocery shopping sometimes. That’s more than I can say about you.”

“Is this about the chores? Eric, baby, we can talk about the chores.”

“I’m not your baby. You broke my heart. I’m taking the coffee machine.”

 

Bitty elbows him out of the way to get back into the kitchen, and crosses to the bench where he unplugs said machine and hefts it into his arms. He storms back through the house and doesn’t stop until he can shove the machine into the back seat of the car, the trunk being occupied by his tub of kitchenware and a suitcase, ostensibly full of clothes.

 

It’s a few moments before the boys join him, each carrying additional bags of his belongings, including his hockey kit slung over Jack’s shoulder. He turns the ignition as they pile into the car, the coffee machine being re-settled onto Holster’s lap.

 

Charli XCX is on the radio, and Bitty turns her all the way up as he pulls away from the curb.

 

\---

 

The magnitude of what happened at Barry’s house hits Bitty like a D-man when he has possession of the puck. He manages to put all his stuff away and send Shitty back home with his sleeping bag, before crawling between his perfect linen sheets with Bey filling the room and a cup of coffee from his machine on the bedside table.

 

He is up to ‘Best Thing I Never Had’, and is crying into his re-acquired duvet in a near-constant stream complete with elephantine sniffles, when there is an assertive knock on his door. His directive to “come in” sounds wobbly and miserable.

 

He lets out a particularly loud sob when the visitor turns out to be Jack.

 

“No, Zimmermann. Don’t even say it. I’m sorry if I’m being noisy, but you’re just going to have to deal, because I earned this. My boyfriend cheated on me and killed my herbs, and this apartment doesn’t have a lemon tree. I’m going to cry as much as I want. The music embargo starts when I stop mourning my tarragon.”

“I got noise-cancelling headphones, so you can cry as loud as you want.”

“How generous.” Bitty punctuates this with a long and particularly wet sniff. “Did you want something, or can I go back to being the saddest person alive?”

Jack squints at him and shakes his head briefly, as though to dislodge some thought from his brain.

“Look, will you just come up to the roof?”

“We have a roof?”

“It’s an apartment building, Bittle. Of course it has a roof.”

 

The roof is accessible by a stairwell which Bitty hadn’t known existed. The space itself is host to a number of banana lounges and a deflated paddling pool, but what Bitty is more interested in is the small potted lemon tree and the large planter box full of herbs. He rubs at his puffy-feeling eyes with his sweatshirt sleeve, and directs as grumpy a look as he can manage at Jack.

“Was this up here the whole time? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jack gives him another squinted look.

“No – jeez, Bittle. It’s – you know. We got it all. For you.”

Bitty feels his eyes widen, and his mouth gape a little.

“Y’all did this for me?”

Jack purses his lips briefly, eyes darting from Bitty to the lemon tree. He gestures toward it vaguely.

“We chipped in. You have been cooking a lot. It’s… it’s nice.”

“Stop the presses; Jack Zimmermann just gave me a compliment.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Oh, don’t worry. My self-esteem is still painfully tiny. I got cheated on.”

 

The sun is pulling low, casting orange and gold across the white render on the buildings around them. It’s a nice view, really, the other rooftops and some hint of the LA sprawl. The sigh Bitty makes comes from the deepest part of him.

“Can I ask you something?”

Bitty blinks to looking at Jack, who has his arms folded and a confused furrow in his brow.

“I’m an open book.”

“Why Barry?”

Bitty’s first instinct is to shrug, but he tamps down on it, crossing his arms in a mirror of Jack’s stance. A breeze picks up, and he can feel the gooseflesh puckering across his bare legs.

“I moved here after college because I didn’t know where else to go, and Shitty said LA was really working for him. I was looking for jobs, and having a generally awful time, and Barry came up to me in a bar. He ate my food and called me Er-Bear. I liked it.”

“So you lived with him for four years?”

“He’s really tall, okay? And the muscles. That surfer hair,” Bitty protests, but it’s through a laugh. Jack’s mouth even quirks a little bit, the threat of a smile.

“And that’s all it takes?”

“That’s all it takes. I’m weak, and he paid me attention. For a while, anyway.”

Silence drops heavy around them, and Bitty tries to ignore how Jack’s cheekbones are lit up by the changing sunlight.

“You know, I should have known earlier. He was way too in to baseball, and didn’t want to watch hockey with me ever.”

“Well, that’s a warning sign right there.”

 

It’s a few moments of them both watching the sun before Jack grunts and drops his arms to shove his hands in his pockets, turning back to the door to ostensibly return to his room and his characteristic brooding. At the door, though, he stops and turns.

“For the record,” he says, and Bitty can’t help his eyebrows rising, “I don’t hate that you’re living here. And Er-Bear is a shit nickname. Bitty suits you better.”

When the rooftop door swings shut behind him, Bitty’s heart is in his throat. He looks back to the lemon tree, too young for fruit, but with glossy leaves and strong growth. Tears prick to his eyes again.

“Eric Richard Bittle, y’ain’t got the sense your mama gave you.”


	3. trunk

“I’m single!”

 

Bitty announces this to the room with surety and confidence – with all the inspiring bravado of the most Oscar-worthy of memorable lines. The effect, to say the least, is lacking; neither Ransom, nor Holster, nor Jack look up from their breakfasts. Ransom does make a vaguely interested noise, but that may be in reaction to whatever he is looking at on his phone.

 

“I said, I’m single,” Bitty tries again, louder for good measure.

“We heard you. It’s not news,” Holster retorts around his oatmeal, a chunk spraying from his mouth and landing squarely on Jack’s avocado toast. Jack stares at it for a moment before declaring, “Well, I can’t eat this now,” and picking up his plate. Bitty watches as he crosses to the kitchen and dumps the toast in the trash with a significant look to Holster which goes unrewarded. When he goes for the protein powder in the top cupboard, Bitty turns back to the other two.

 

“Y’all aren’t getting it. I’m single, and I’m ready. Ready to go out and get some strange.”

Ransom, taking a sip of orange juice, chokes slightly and dribbles some onto his shirt. He swallows the rest, and looks plaintively down at the stain.

“Aw, man. This is my one ironed shirt.” He wipes at the stain for a few seconds, before deciding, “I’ll wear a tie,” and finally looking at Bitty. “Just to be clear, you mean, like… a one night stand?”

“I’m ready to jump back on the horse. The proverbial sex horse.”

Ransom mutters something that sounds like, “Jesus Christ,” but it’s quickly drowned out by Jack turning on the blender.

“I need y’all to be my wingmen,” Bitty shouts over the noise.

“What?”

“My wingmen!”

“What?”

The blender finally cuts off, and Bitty spares a glance to Jack – who has his back to the rest of the room, and is now banging the blender jug on the countertop – and reiterates to Ransom, “I need wingmen. Help me fly into some nameless hunk’s bed tonight.”

“You make it sound like we’re going to be there too,” Holster comments through another mouthful, this time keeping the spray to a minimum.

 

Ransom is squinting at Bitty a little bit, set of his mouth coming across thoughtful.

“Maybe he’s got a point. We’re all in a bit of a drought. I haven’t had to listen to Jack disappoint a girl in months.”

“I’m not a part of this,” Jack insists, using a spoon to scrape the remnants of his shake from the bottom of the blender.

“I’m in,” Holster interjects. “This is a beautiful journey we’re about to share. Helping this whole apartment get laid. Like Secret Santa, but with sex.”

“Holster’s in,” Bitty crows, pointing at him approvingly. He directs his attention to Jack. “Jack, you should really come along. It’ll be fun! Give you a chance to relax the muscles in your face for once.”

Jack sips at his protein shake through a glare. Bitty holds his gaze unblinkingly, until Jack is the first one to look away.

“Don’t you have a best friend for this?”

“He’s helping our friend Lardo bump in her sculpture exhibition.”

Jack sighs, minutely.

“Fine. But I’m not hooking up. I’ll come for a drink.”

Bitty whoops, and Ransom and Holster clap obligingly.

“We’re going to get extra twirly tonight, fellas. I’m feelin’ really good.”

 

\---

 

Bitty is feeling really bad.

 

He’s huddled in a booth in the bar the boys frequent, hair coiffed and skin polished, sleeves rolled up to bare his forearms and jeans tightly hugging his thighs, but all he can do is sip meekly at his vodka lime and soda. He is eyeing a throng of loudly-laughing guys near the bar, each one of them model-perfect and with the kind of teeth that you see in catalogues, when Jack materializes out of seemingly nowhere, beer in hand and face, of course, frowning.

“What are you doing?”

“Being ugly and alone. But it’s fine; I have alcohol.”

Without an invitation, Jack slides into the booth and follows Bitty’s line of sight to the group of laughing guys.

“I thought you wanted a one night stand.”

“I’m just not sure it’s a good idea. I’ve only had sex with Barry for the past four years. What if they changed it? What if they changed sex, to trick me?”

Jack takes a pull from his beer, and Bitty doesn’t know shame as he watches the movement of it down his throat.

“You’re right. People have been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years, and this is the year they decided to change it all because Eric Bittle is back on the market.”

 

Bitty laughs as derisively as he can manage, it coming as a sharp bark that gets a woman standing close to them to look around with a startled expression on her face.

“You’re one to talk. From what Ransom and Holster say, you’ve been celibate for eons. You should be just as afraid as I am.”

Jack grunts, taking another sip from his beer. The long muscles in his throat visibly expand and contract, his Adam’s apple chasing the movement of his mouthful. Watching its progress again, Bitty feels his own throat go dry, and has an idea.

 

“I have an idea,” he says.

“No, thanks.”

“Listen; it’s a really good idea. How about I find a girl for you, and you find a guy for me? I’ll be your fluffer.”

Jack snorts around his beer, slapping a hand over his mouth to stop the liquid from escaping. When he swallows again, it’s slowly.

“That doesn’t mean that. Don’t call yourself a fluffer.”

“Is that a yes?”

Jack sighs again, wearing untellable weariness. He finally looks back to Bitty, resignation palpable.

“Alright. Wingman me.”

 

\---

 

Finding a girl for Jack Zimmermann is harder than it would seem. Bitty starts by scanning the bar, looking for anyone who seems athletic enough to pique Jack’s interest. It’s a given that the girl needs to be at least as attractive as Jack, if not more, but also with an apparent high tolerance for grumpiness.

 

He zeroes in on three different girls.

 

The first has thick, natural curls, burnished mahogany skin, and is wearing a high-necked sleeveless dress which shows off her toned arms. Bitty sidles up next to her at the bar, and tries for a sunny and engaging, “hi!”

 

She turns a raised eyebrow on him, and uncertainly smiles back.

“Hi? I’m not comfortable buying a drink for a minor, if that’s what you’re going to ask.”

Bitty blinks at her.

“What? Um, no. I was wondering if – a minor? Really? I’m 25.”

She laughs briefly, shaking her head.

“Nah, there’s no way. Did you come here from day care? Is your parent or guardian with you?”

“I’m a grown up,” Bitty insists, not helping his case. “I can show you my ID.”

“Did you get your big cousin from Florida to give you a fake?”

“No, I – I have a license. I pay taxes. Sometimes I have to wear a tie for meetings. You know what?” he sputters, feeling the heat pooling in his cheeks, “Never mind. I’ll find a different girl to sleep with my roommate.”

He turns away, her laughter following him as he scuttles away from the bar.

 

The second girl has straight black hair, an aquiline nose, and towers over Bitty by what seems like an entire foot. She is loitering near the jukebox, short glass with amber liquid in hand.

“Hi. Can I just say, you’re very beautiful.” It seems as good an opener as any. Up close, he notices there is something intense and hawk-like about her green eyes.

“Thank you,” she replies. Her tone seems intrigued.

“I was wondering if you’d be interested having a drink with my friend.”

She smiles, and dimples appear in her cheeks. Bitty silently congratulates himself on picking a winner. Then, she says, “Oh, right. Your friend.”

 

The way she says _friend_ forces an uncertain laugh from his throat.

“Yeah. He’s around here somewhere… looks like he could turn into a werewolf at any given moment?”

“Sure. Let’s find your friend. Maybe your friend is in the bathroom. Maybe he’d like to wait in the stall for a few minutes, and then I’ll come meet him. Your friend.”

Bitty’s second chuckle comes out two octaves above his normal pitch, and sounds a little like a scream. He coughs in an attempt to clear his throat.

“I’ll just… go find him, shall I?”

“And I’ll just go to the bathroom.” She drops him a wink, and downs the rest of what is in her glass. The way she trails her fingers across Bitty’s shoulders as she leaves makes a legitimate shudder go down his spine.

 

The third girl is sitting in a booth by herself, just as Bitty had been earlier, and is idly fishing a cherry from the bottom of her glass. She has shoulder-length blonde hair and very strong eyebrows, and is wearing a simple white t-shirt. When Bitty approaches her, she looks up with the blankest expression he’s ever seen – except for Jack’s.

“Hi. Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you’d be interested in having a drink with my roommate?”

“Is he The Invisible Man?” Her voice is low and smoky, delivery sharp and deadpan – another thing like Jack.

“No, he’s uh –” Bitty casts a desperate look around the bar, and finds Jack frowning at a wiry guy with a buzzcut. “He’s over there. The guy who could be in a perfume commercial.”

“Why does he look like he wants the world to get off his lawn?”

“I’m not going to lie to you; he honestly might be 60 years old. But what I can say is that he is very hygienic, and he has a well-balanced diet. His stamina is also off the charts.”

“Well, he is weirdly checking all of my boxes.” Her eyes flick between Bitty and Jack, and she sweeps her hair back from her face in a seemingly unconscious movement. “Tell him he can buy me an Old Fashioned, and we’ll see what we see. My name is Camilla.”

 

Bitty fights down his urge to cheer, resorting instead to smiling and rapping the tabletop with his knuckles. He turns to make his way over to Jack, to find that Jack is approaching him in kind, the wiry buzzcut guy in tow.

“Bittle, this is Trunk. He assures me that it is a nickname. He’s a backpacker from Australia. This is his last night in LA. He has sworn that he is not in a relationship.”

Trunk visibly gives Bitty a once-over, and doesn’t seem displeased by what he finds. Under the scrutiny, Bitty feels his cheeks heating again, and hears himself say, “oh my.” Up close and upfront, Trunk is amber-eyed and hard-jawed, with a deeply bronze complexion. Bitty, too, is not displeased.

“Call me Eric,” he says, offering his hand.

“Eric,” Trunk repeats, shaking firmly and smiling. His teeth are almost blindingly white.

 

“Alright, kids. Play nice.” Jack seems about to dematerialize, so Bitty grabs for his arm.

“Oh, no you don’t. Look over there.” He jerks his head as subtly as he can in Camilla’s direction.

Jack’s frown is back.

“Bittle, those women are clearly here together.”

Bitty turns to see what he’s looking at; the booth next to Camilla’s is indeed occupied by two women holding hands above the table and sharing a drink between two straws. Bitty scoffs.

“No, you big lug. Her.” He watches as Jack’s eyebrows raise minutely when he points to Camilla – a good sign, to be sure. “Her name is Camilla. Buy her an Old Fashioned.”

Jack’s answering sigh is smaller than Bitty had been expecting, and he does actually turn towards the bar.

 

“So,” Trunk says when he leaves, “what can I get you?”

 

\---

 

Sex with Trunk is an achievable goal. At the bar, he had told Bitty many entertaining stories about his backpacking adventures, and had laughed at Bitty’s comments. It was all the psychological lube that Bitty needed to invite him back to the loft.

 

Trunk turns out to be a very good kisser. They sit on Bitty’s bed joined at the lips, the door closed and ‘Rocket’ playing over the speakers, and Bitty is about to lie back and coax Trunk down next to him, when Trunk makes a sound that is unequivocally a sob. Bitty freezes.

 

When he pulls away, it is to find that Trunk’s face is screwed up in ways Bitty hadn’t thought possible for a face, tears leaking from his eyes and snot threatening to drip from his nose. He is, possibly, the ugliest crier that Bitty has ever seen.

“Oh, now. Don’t do that,” Bitty pleads, punctuating it with a would-be consoling pat to Trunk’s shoulder. In reply, Trunk makes another wretched moan. Bitty tries again.

 

“There, there. It’s okay.” He tries patting Trunk’s shoulder once more.

“I’m s-sorry,” Trunk nearly bawls, and Bitty spares a courtesy glance to the door lest one of his roommates comes to investigate the noise. “You’re just s-so hot.” The way he wails _hot_ makes it seem like the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.

“Thank you?” It comes out as a question.

“And you’re so n-nice, and f-funny, and I’m leaving tomorrow and I’ll never see you again.” The noise he makes next is more of a gut-wrenching howl.

 

For some reason, Bitty finds himself saying, “Oh, I’m sure we’ll see each other again.” It makes Trunk turn wide, hopeful eyes on him.

“You mean that?”

“Sure.”

“Eric, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about someone before.”

“Oh. Lucky me.” Bitty pats Trunks shoulder a third time, for good measure.

 

This is how Bitty ends up spending his first one-night-stand in four years fully clothed, being cuddled by a crying Australian backpacker.

 

\---

 

Jack is already in the kitchen when Bitty gets up in the morning, coffee in hand, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts.

“You,” Bitty throws at him accusingly, hands on hips for good measure. Jack frowns.

“Isn’t that the shirt you wore yesterday?”

“Oh, this shirt? You think I wore this shirt yesterday? That’s because I did,” Bitty hisses, “because I never took it off, because the only thing I did last night was cuddle.”

“With that guy?”

“Trunk, his name is Trunk. And you picked him out. This is your fault.”

“What is my fault exactly?”

 

As though on cue, a voice calls, “Babe?” from the depths of the apartment. Bitty points a threatening finger at Jack, glare in as full a force as he can manage, as Trunk wanders into the kitchen.

“There you are. I missed you.” He follows this up by wrapping himself around Bitty from behind, and planting a kiss on his cheek. Bitty laughs, a little hysterical, still glaring at Jack. For his part, Jack is mildly sipping his coffee, betraying no reaction to the scene in front of him.

“Hey, Trunk? Don’t you have a plane to catch?”

Trunk laughs lightly into Bitty’s ear, and the sound fills Bitty’s stomach with something akin to dread.

“Nah, babe. I missed it. But now I get to spend more time with you.”

“Oh!” It comes out so high-pitched, Bitty is sure it could signal dogs. “You hear that, Jack? Trunk is staying!”

“I love you, babe,” Trunk murmurs into his ear, and again, all that Bitty can say is, “Thank you.”

 

Jack is, somehow, still sipping his coffee. Bitty widens his eyes at him, trying to telepathically communicate his need for help. Jack sets down his coffee, and folds his arms across his bare chest.

“Hey, Trunk? Where’s your backpack?”

“Still at the hostel. I was going to the airport from there, but then I met this one.” He snuggles Bitty impossibly tighter to his chest, forcing another of the hysterical noises from Bitty’s throat.

“You’ve got to go get that, right? You can bring it back here. And I mean, the sooner you do that, the sooner you can get back to cuddling with Bittle.”

Bitty mouths _I will poison you_ at Jack as clearly as he can.

“Right. Yeah. Babe, why don’t you come with? I’ve heard about this unreal place that does homebrew kombucha.”

“Oh, great! I love… drinks fermented in back alleys. It’s just that… Jack! Jack is – we were going to… we had that – um, plans –”

“Bittle is driving me to the doctor. I have a hernia.” Jack delivers this with a straight face, retrieving his coffee, and Bitty wants to hug him.

“Really? Mate, you look fine to me.”

“It’s… deep in there.” He gestures to his groin with his coffee cup, which seems enough to get Trunk saying, “Oh man, I’m so sorry.”

 

It seems miraculous when he is then kissing Bitty’s cheek, promising, “I’ll miss you,” telling Jack, “Take care of him for me,” and departing with a playful slap to Bitty’s ass.

 

Bitty waits until he hears the door close before rounding on Jack, fake hernia forgotten.

“Everything about this is your fault,” he grits out, angrily crossing to the coffee pot to pour himself a cup.

“I made him leave. You’re welcome. Why didn’t you just tell him to go?”

“Excuse me? Ask a guest to leave? I can hear my mama now, getting on a flight from Georgia to come slap you in the face.”

“So, what? You’re just going to let him move in? Get married to him?”

“No. You’re going to tell him to stay away. Book him a new flight yourself if you have to.”

“Or, you could be an adult and just say, ‘look buddy, it’s not going to work out. Go home.’”

“Is that what you said to your date?”

“No, she went home by herself. Nice girl.”

“I can’t believe you got to hook up last night, and I just got cried on.”  
“Was that what that noise was?” Ransom follows this statement, shuffling into the kitchen and scratching his stomach under his shirt. “I thought someone was strangling a cat.”

 

“Successful Secret Santa, bros,” announces Holster, trailing in wearing his kimono and a riotous case of bedhead. “Fist bumps for bumping uglies.” He offers said fist to Ransom. They follow up the bump with an explosion. Holster next offers his fist to Jack on his way to the coffee machine, which Jack accepts with a wryly raised eyebrow. Before Holster can even make an attempt to fist-bump Bitty, Jack interjects with, “Bittle didn’t have sex. He got a clinger.”

 

Holster and Ransom both hum sympathetically. Bitty scoffs.

“A clinger? What is this, some guy-dude-bro term you use to dehumanize the girls you attempt to hook up with?”

“No, it’s a sound category that helps avoid situations turning from ‘snuggles’ to ‘I screen printed your face onto my pajamas.’”

“Oh, come on. That would never happ –”

“Happened to me. Twice,” Ransom insists, Holster nodding sagely beside him. “And I could have avoided it all if I just followed these three easy steps.”

“I’m not going to foll –"

“One,” Holster interjects, “be unavailable. We’re not talking about emotions here.”

“Nuh-uh. You gotta be everywhere they aren’t. They want to grab dinner?”

“You say, ‘Sorry, I volunteered to save the bees.’”

“They want to come watch a movie?”

“Can’t. I have to drive to Boston to help my mom move the couch.”

“They want to go for a walk at the beach?”

“Oh, that’s too bad, my job is sending me to Belarus.”

 

Bitty stares at them.

“So, lying? Your first step is lying to him?”

“Number two,” Holster continues as though Bitty hadn’t said anything, “is the ‘new phone, who dis’?”

“Really?” Bitty asks through a roll of his eyes. “You didn’t invent that.”

“They text,” Ransom steamrolls on, “and you reply, ‘New phone, who dis?’ They text you back. You say, ‘sorry – comma – who?’ They try again. You say, ‘I don’t know you.’”

“Again, lying. You’re just telling me to lie to him.”

“And number three, the pièce de résistance,” Holster persists, gaining volume and hand gestures which he uses to indicate Ransom like he might be Michelangelo’s David.

“Fake your death,” Ransom finishes, tone cavalier.

 

“Your solution is that I Tom Sawyer him?”

“I thought you wanted to avoid having sex with him,” Holster observes.

Bitty sighs, a sound overflowing with his boiling irritation.

“Tom Sawyer is not a naughty thing. It’s a fake funeral thing.”

“Woah, nobody said anything about a funeral,” Ransom protests. “You just need to get some reliable parties to insinuate that you’ve died, through a tweet or something.”

“Classy,” Holster adds, giving Ransom the finger guns. “Like, ‘you were truly the best of us. Rest in Pies, Bitty.’”

 

After a beat of silence, Bitty shakes his head.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” he reasons. “He is very attractive, and affection is nice. I could get used to him. Maybe he is my future.”

“I’m starting to understand the thing with Barry a whole lot better now,” Holster stage-whispers to Ransom.

“Bittle,” Jack cuts in finally, arms folded again and brow still in a furrow of disappointment and annoyance, “you need to just tell him to leave. Just tell him it’s not going to work out.”

“I’ve never broken up with anybody before. I’m always the one who loves more! I don’t know what to do when it’s the other way around.”

“It’s not a breakup. He’s just some weirdo who clearly isn’t ready to go back to Australia, and so he’s latching on to you.”

Bitty hates that Jack is reasonable.

 

\---

 

When Trunk knocks on the door, Bitty hears it as three nails in his self-built coffin. Thankfully, Ransom, Holster, and Jack accompany him to answer it like his own little security detail. He takes a steeling breath and answers the door, but almost slams it again when Trunk is on the other side, backpack hoister high on his shoulders and, “I missed you, babe” already tumbling from his mouth. What Bitty actually manages to do is chuckle weakly, and say, “Thank you” again. When Trunk steps over the threshold and tries to kiss him, Bitty is thankful for his regular yoga routine, which enables him to bend back far enough to duck from beneath Trunk’s searching lips.

“You’re flexible,” Trunk observes, and Bitty chuckles again in that stilted way.

 

“Listen, Trunk. You’re such a… passionate guy. And that’s lovely. Really, thank you.”

“I can show you passionate.” Trunk tries to lean in again, so Bitty executes another evasive maneuver, pairing it with a hand to Trunk’s mouth. All that gets him is a kiss on his fingers.

“Dude, give up,” Ransom mutters from behind.

“Stop trying to kiss him, man,” comes from Holster.

 

“Listen, Trunk,” Bitty tries for the second time, “we don’t know each other.”

“We’ve got plenty of time to learn, babe.”

“I don’t… want… to.”

The rapidity with which Trunk’s expression falls is so startling that Bitty isn’t sure his features aren’t about to slip right off his face.

“But we shared a beautiful moment.”

“I think we both had very different experiences last night.” Bitty swallows, casting a glance back to the boys and earning a supportive nod from Ransom. “You need to go back to Australia, this isn’t going to work out.” It comes in one breath, a rushed sentence that, for a moment, Bitty thinks that Trunk may not have been able to understand.

Then, Trunk’s face screws up and he emits a sort of dog-like whine, before visibly gritting his teeth and trying to shake the tears from his eyes. It is a reminder of the assessment that Bitty had made last night: he is the ugliest crier in the world. Unsure of what else to do, Bitty pats him on the shoulder.

“There, there.”

“I c-can’t g-go home, man,” Trunk sobs, and Bitty silently curses that Jack was right.

“Surely you want to see your family. Friends. There are probably lots of nice boys wherever you’re from.”

“All my friends have partners, and they’re always on me to settle down, and I can’t go back empty handed.”

“Is he saying that because he could pick Bitty up with one hand?” Holster mutters, badly. Bitty shoots a glare back at him.

“Dating sucks.”

When Bitty pats Trunk’s shoulder this time, it’s more genuine.

“It does. But it’s got to be worth it, right? The endgame?”

Trunk smiles at him, a little watery and resigned.

“I’ll call you an Uber,” Bitty says.

 

\---

 

With Trunk safely on his way to the airport with hopes that the airline will be able to bump him to a later flight, Bitty collapses onto the couch with a bone-deep sigh, fabric fungus be damned. He groans loudly when he is joined by Jack. He reaches for a cushion and squashes it over his own face.

“I’m still blaming you,” he says, muffled by the pillow.

“I’m sorry.”

Bitty lets it hang there for a moment, before easing the cushion aside and peering at Jack. He still hasn’t dressed, and his boxers are pulling across his thighs a little bit. Bitty re-positions the cushion over both eyes, to save himself.

“Yeah, well. He did seem normal, at the bar.”

“Thank you, as well. For Camilla. I think I’m going to call her. She’s got… moxie.”

Bitty makes as interested a noise as he can muster, thankful for the cushion covering his expression.

“Let’s not interrogate why my taste in women is better than your taste in men.”

Jack hums gravely. Bitty removes the pillow from his face, and looks at him plainly.

“I guess the least I can say is that I’m over Barry. I mean, as much as you can be over someone who cheated on you.”

“That’s good.” Without further comment, Jack heaves to his feet and pads off towards his bedroom. Bitty watches him go, and his tongue feels thick in his mouth.


	4. LA philharmonic benefactor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I kind of thought,” muses Ransom, “that letting a gay guy move in would bring a bunch of hot, straight, best girl-friends. Instead we get Captain Marijuana and the Beer Witch over there.” He pauses for a moment, also looking back to Lardo, who briefly snorts with laughter at something on the TV. “It’s somehow better,” he decides.
> 
> * * *
> 
> When Eric Bittle catches his boyfriend cheating on him in their own home, he takes to Craigslist to find replacement accommodation -- and ends up in a loft with three men, one of whom may have been put on this Earth to test him.
> 
> A Check, Please! New Girl AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a quick note to say thanks to everyone who read the first three chapters! I hope I can continue to be entertaining.

Lardo and Shitty’s apartment is never without the cloying smell of weed, and is also never without an open bottle of pink wine in the fridge, which is why it is where Bitty goes after his first day back at work following his so-called ‘compassionate leave’. It is preferable to going home and having to deal with Jack, especially after the events of the morning.

 

He groans heavily, eyes closed and head tipped back against the couch cushions, hand outstretched and waiting for Lardo to put a glass into it. When he feels the cool of condensation against his fingertips, he grasps at it and brings it straight to his mouth. He downs half the glass in two gulps.

“Thirsty boy,” Lardo comments, settling next to him on the floor. The tell-tale click of her lighter sees her lighting a joint. The weed smell intensifies.

 

The good thing about Lardo being home, and not Shitty, is that Bitty is free to wallow and commiserate. He is free to go over the details of his shame without it turning into a well-meaning call to arms.

“Is it irresponsible to get bitch-ass shitfaced on a worknight?”

“Not if you’re not handling knives tomorrow.”

In answer, Bitty downs the rest of his glass and holds it aloft again. Lardo follows his wordless request, hauling herself to her feet and collecting his glass on the way to the fridge. He listens to it open and close, and the familiar glug of wine being poured into the glass, before finally opening his eyes. Lardo has her joint clamped between her lips, his wineglass in one hand, and a beer for herself in the other. She scuffs back to him on bare feet, and he accepts the wine glass, taking a deliberately small sip.

“I can’t be expected to go back to normal life. Not after what I’ve seen.”

Lardo hums gravely.

 

That morning, Bitty had gotten back from his jog, was still feeling bouncy, and still had his music playing. He had taken a quick detour to the kitchen to fill a glass of water, and had danced with it down the hallway to the bathroom. Singing pointlessly, he had set the glass by the sink, and had gone to pull back the shower curtain to get it going while he stripped – but. The shower was decidedly occupied, by Jack Zimmermann no less, in all his naked and glistening glory. Bitty had seen the unknown, toned musculature of his thighs and glutes. He was already familiar with the ropy strength of Jack’s back, but not when rivulets of water were running over its definition. What he definitely wasn’t familiar with was the sight that greeted him when Jack turned around, hanging heavy and thick –

 

Bitty takes a gulp of wine.

“It’s just Even Stevens, right? He’s seen yours, now you’ve seen his.”

The difference being, of course, that Jack probably wasn’t seeing flashes of it throughout his day. That for Jack, the simple act of chopping a zucchini wasn’t going to bring on flushed cheeks and an uncomfortably tight collar.

“I don’t know why we had so many eggplants on the menu today.”

They drink and smoke in silence for a while – long enough that when Lardo says, “Bits,” Bitty knows what follows isn’t going to be good.

 

“Do you think maybe you’re hung up on it because… I dunno… you like him?”

Bitty is proud of the nonchalance in his scoff, and is doubly proud of the carefree sip of wine he takes.

“Like him? Please. I barely tolerate him. He’s grumpy and joyless, and would legitimately be satisfied if all his sustenance for the day came from taking a single pill.”

“So why does it matter that you’ve seen his dick?”

The truth is that it was a very nice dick, and for all of the shortcomings of Jack’s personality, the rest of his body was very nice as well.

“It’s purely physical,” Bitty tells Lardo. “Just a man who wants to take a bite out of his roommate’s ass.”

 

\---

 

Said ass is planted firmly on the couch with Ransom and Holster when Bitty returns from Lardo’s, a little tipsy and yet with the same level of frustration. He barely throws out a, “Hey, y’all” before making a beeline for his room and closing the door firmly behind him. He hasn’t even had a chance to throw himself onto his bed before there’s a knock on his door. He finds himself saying, “Come in,” even though he knows who it is and couldn’t want him less in that moment.

 

“Hey, Bittle,” Jack starts, holding the door open with one hand and leaning on the door jamb with the other, in a casually rugged way. Bitty wants to shut the door on his fingers. “Just wanted to check you’re fine after this morning.”

“Something happened this morning?”

“Yeah, you – uh. You kind of ran away.”

He had, indeed, fled from the apartment and extended his jog another thirty minutes until he could be sure that Jack had left entirely. It left him with no time to do his hair, and he was ten minutes late to work, but both these outcomes had been preferable to dealing with Jack.

“Oh, that,” he says now. “No, I just – I needed to do an extra four miles! You know me; I can never have too much running.”

“Yeah,” Jack says slowly, single eyebrow raising and bleeding skepticism. “I just wanted to say that I don’t care, and neither should you. Locker room stuff, y’know?”

“Oh, of course. Why should you care? You’re very – you’re. It’s – I mean, not it, but you – Camilla must be happy.”

 

Bitty’s face feels somehow hot and cold at the same time. His mouth is full of saliva, but his throat is dry. His palms clam up. Jack betrays no inkling of having heard what he said. No inkling, aside from saying, “Well, I’ve got a date,” and rapping his knuckles against the door frame. He shuts the door behind himself.

 

Bitty throws himself face-down onto his bed, and waits there until he hears the front door signal Jack leaving to go and meet Camilla. At that point, Bitty hauls himself from bed and to the kitchen, where the ingredients for a batch of confetti cookies are waiting.

 

\---

 

Lardo agrees to act as a buffer, coming over every night for baking sessions or _Real Housewives_ marathons or to help Bitty build his new IKEA dresser. Technically, she needn’t bother: Jack is thoroughly AWOL, only ducking in for a few minutes after work to change out of his gym uniform polo before leaving to ostensibly meet up with Camilla. The adage of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ is operating in full force for Bitty, who is able to happily throw himself into menu revisions and reality TV without intrusive thoughts derailing him.

 

It takes four days for Ransom and Holster to notice that something is up.

“Hey, Bitty? Is she – uh, has she moved in?” Ransom whispers to him over a batch of fig and goats cheese tartlets, while Lardo is taking a bathroom break. “Just because – like, I don’t mind, but it’s a violation of the loft by-laws, and if Jack finds out he’ll have a heart attack for real. It’ll be what kills him, I’m sure.”

“I don’t even know her name, man, but I’m all for it if she wants to live here. She put a bunch of Coronas in the fridge, did you see that? She told me to _help myself_.” Holster casts a glance over his shoulder, to where Lardo has re-settled on the couch and has pressed play on _Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta_. “I think I’m in love with her, bro.”

“Stop that,” Bitty chastises, slicing decisively through a fig. “You’re not in love with her; you just like beer. Anyway, she’s gay, so you can put that tongue away right now.”

“I kind of thought,” muses Ransom, “that letting a gay guy move in would bring a bunch of hot, straight, best girl-friends. Instead we get Captain Marijuana and the Beer Witch over there.” He pauses for a moment, also looking back to Lardo, who briefly snorts with laughter at something on the TV. “It’s somehow better,” he decides.

 

“Well, her name is Lardo, and she’s only here because – because, Shitty’s working on a hard case at the moment, and she’s sick of him muttering creepily about land taxes.”

Ransom and Holster are not privy to what happened between Jack and Bitty, and are especially not aware of the effect of Jack’s body on Bitty – or, for that matter, the effect of his face. Bitty can only imagine the reaction if they were to know about any of it, not least because of Holster’s obsession with who has and hasn’t seen each other naked in the apartment.

 

Bitty vigorously whisks his egg and cream mixture, ignoring the flecks that escape from the bowl and land on the counter. He stops briefly when he hears the front door open, before resuming his whisking with renewed vigor.

 

Jack, it turns out, is accompanied by Camilla, who enters the living room and drawls, “Hello, Jack’s roommates.” Her voice is low and syrupy. Bitty sets the bowl on the counter with perhaps unnecessary violence. When he looks up from crumbling goats cheese into waiting tartlet cases, Jack has presumably ducked into his room, and Camilla is regarding Lardo with one of her blank expressions.

“We haven’t met,” she observes. “I’d remember you.”

Bitty feels his eyes widen – it sounds, for all appearances, like a line.

“I’m Larissa.” She shifts on the couch to reach over the back and offer Camilla her hand. “The smell in here has nothing to do with me.”

Alarmingly, it makes Camilla laugh; even from the kitchen, Bitty can see her nose crinkle up. She laughs like a bell. Briefly, he hates her, but then she shakes Lardo’s hand and tucks her hair behind her ear, and Bitty sees what is happening. He smiles at his egg mixture as he pours it over the goats cheese.

 

\---

 

Bitty emerges from a short bathroom break, hoping that the timer for his tartlets hasn’t gone off yet, to find that Lardo no longer occupies the couch: in her place, Jack is watching _Say Yes to the Dress_ with a deep-set furrow in his brow.

“Where’d Lardo go?”

Jack looks up with momentary surprise, like he hadn’t known Bitty was still at home.

“She, uh. She and Camilla went to get fro-yo.”

“Oh. Does that… bother you?”

Jack’s frown is back.

“No. Why would it?”

Bitty shrugs, and continues on his way to the kitchen. Checking his timer reveals that there are two minutes left for the tarts.

 

He almost jumps out of his skin when he looks up and Jack is standing at the kitchen counter.

“Lord, Jack! Are you part cat or something?”

“Why should I be bothered?”

Bitty has to look away, ducking low to peer through the oven door and see what his tartlets are doing. He can see them bubbling, can make out the gooey caramelization of the figs.

“If you’re not bothered, don’t be bothered. I’m sure it’s no big deal.”

“You’re saying that like you think I should be bothered.”

“Do what you want, bruh.”

“Did you just call me ‘bruh’?”

“I did, and it felt disgusting just coming out of my mouth. Ugh. I’m sorry.”

Jack falls silent, even when the timer goes off and Bitty slips on his oven mitts to take the tartlet trays out of the oven. He sets them in front of Jack on a waiting wire rack, giving Jack something to focus his consternation on.

 

“Hypothetically, if I were to be bothered… why would that be?”

Bitty makes an airy, non-committal noise, tugging his oven mitts from his hands.

“Fro-yo is usually Lardo’s first date go-to. I’m not saying that’s what she and Camilla are doing, I’m just saying that usually when the yogurt is a-frozen, Lardo’s new girl is a-chosen.”

Jack takes the news in a surprising way: his face actually relaxes, a brief and loose smile flitting over his mouth.

“Is that all? I thought it was going to be something really bad.”

Bitty purses his lips.

“Worse than your girlfriend being stolen?”

Jack snorts. “She’s not my girlfriend. I thought it was something like, they got roped into the treehouse that Holster is building.”

“Holster’s building a treehouse?”

“Don’t ask; it’s a whole big thing.”

Bitty hums, and directs his attention back to the tartlets, which have stopped bubbling. He taps experimentally at the crust on one of them, which feels appropriately crumbly. Feeling he’s being watched, he clears his throat.

 

“So she’s not your girlfriend, huh?”

“No. It’s casual. We mostly just have sex and –”

“Ah!” Bitty clamps his hands over his ears and screws his eyes shut. “La la la, no thanks! That’s something I don’t need to know.”

“It’s consenting adults, Bittle.”

“It’s your private personal business, and I’ll thank you to keep it that way.”

When he opens his eyes, Jack is still watching him – this time with a mild expression of amusement, eyebrows lifted and mouth curling at the edges.

“I still owe you one, don’t I?”

Bitty gawps at him.

“One what?”

“I don’t think we can really count Trunk.”

Bitty has passed out, and is having a fever dream. That is the only way to account for the sly smirk of Jack’s lips, the suggestive quirk of one eyebrow, the way he leans his elbows on the counter. It is the only way to explain why it seems like Jack is suggesting that he be the one to fill the position that Trunk left empty.

 

“Let’s go out again. I’ll find you a better guy.”

Bitty hurtles back to reality, with the feeling of being plunged headfirst into cold water.

“You want to wingman me again?”

“Yeah. It’s the least I can do, eh?”

Bitty laughs, and hopes that Jack doesn’t hear its humorlessness.

“Oh, the very least, Mr. Zimmermann.”

 

\---

 

Rather than going back to the boys’ old standby bar, Jack takes Bitty to somewhere slightly fancier in the Arts District – fancy enough to have valet parking. It is the kind of place where the bartenders have moustaches and wear brown leather aprons. Bitty gives Jack his most suspicious look.

“What are you expecting to find in here? Stockbrokers looking to cheat on their wives with some bright young thing?”

“Holster said he’s hooked up here before.”

“What about that makes you think that I’m going to be able to?”

“Just… come on. I’ll get you a drink.”

 

The crowd is obviously different from the other bar, with – as Bitty had predicted – more silver foxes than guys in their 30s trying too hard. The bar does have booths around the walls, but also a series of cocktail tables dotted throughout the crowd, onto which said silver foxes lean and talk to balayage-d women with gleaming smiles. Jack deposits Bitty at a free one with the directive, “Wait here.” He returns a few minutes later with a beer for himself and a vodka lime and soda for Bitty, which he accepts with a thrill of bewilderment.

“How did you know what I drink?”

Jack gives him a vaguely disgruntled look, like he is offended about the question.

“I was there for the Drinkpocalypse.”

 

Drinkpocalypse had happened on the night after Trunk left, and had involved an anarchic drinking game that left Bitty demanding vodka lime and sodas from his roommates like an imperious king. There had been a duvet cape involved.

 

Now, Bitty takes a careful sip from the offered drink. Really, it’s very good.

“So what’s the plan, Captain?”

 

It turns out, Jack doesn’t have much of a plan. He watches as Jack strikes out with three clearly-straight guys in a row, and marvels a little at how he managed to find Trunk at all. Jack ducks back to the table to set his drained beer bottle down and offer Bitty an apologetic grimace. Bitty gives him a raised eyebrow in return.

“This is kind of making me feel like a courtesan. And not one dripping in diamonds and bathing in perfume, either; like a tuberculosis-ridden pale waif who just sits around covered in black lace.”

This comment makes Jack grimace harder, running a thumb down the neck of his empty beer.

“We just got here.”

He raps his knuckles on the table, and disappears back into the crowd.

 

Bitty is jostling the straw in his glass to re-distribute the ice, and Jack has been gone for only a few more minutes, when he is tapped on the elbow and a deep voice asks, “Excuse me?”

 

The speaker is one of the silver foxes whom Bitty noticed earlier, hair a carefully controlled swoop of grey-and-black, jaw bearing a carefully controlled 5 o’clock shadow. He also has grey-ish eyes, and is wearing a charcoal shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Bitty notices, fleetingly, that there is no ring on his finger.

“Oh, no need. No excuse required.”

The man gives Bitty a smile, and Bitty finds himself turning bodily towards him.

“I just saw you from across the bar, and I had to introduce myself. I’m George.” He offers his hand to Bitty, which Bitty takes, saying, “Eric. Charmed, I’m sure.” He finds himself laughing, a false and sycophantic sound – but a sound which is highly preferable to the one he really wants to make, which is a lip-bitten moan. George’s voice is like velvet, and his handshake is firm. It’s all boding well.

 

“I saw you with someone, but he doesn’t seem to be here anymore.”

“Lord, that’s just my roommate. He’s trying to find someone for me to do the do with.” As soon as it is out of his mouth, Bitty wishes it wasn’t. He feels his cheeks flush, which he attempts to cover by taking a sip from his drink. The straw makes a violent slurping sound; he is down to the dregs. George, though, doesn’t seem to mind. At Bitty’s admission, his eyebrows raise in something like hope.

“So technically, you’re here alone?”

“I’m wide open.” The flush in his cheeks is persistent. He also feels like he hasn’t blinked in at least a minute, his eyes feeling sharp with dryness.

“In that case, I wonder if I can be so bold as to buy a drink for a beautiful stranger?”

“Shut your mouth,” Bitty laughs, resting his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. “I mean, yes. Yes, that would be nice.” It all gets worse when George picks up his empty glass, gives it a sniff, and asks, “Vodka lime and soda?”

 

All Bitty can do is nod.

 

He watches George’s progress to the bar, but is soon interrupted by Jack introducing himself to Bitty’s field of vision.

“I’m striking out,” Jack tells him, tone low and put-out. Bitty blinks at him for a moment before the admission connects.

“Oh! Well. It’s fine. Don’t trouble yourself, slugger.” He aims a punch at Jack’s shoulder, overcompensating a little bit and actually jostling him marginally. Jack’s frown returns.

“Slugger?”

“I got my own,” Bitty whispers at him, sending a significant look in the direction of the bar. When Jack follows his gaze, George is in profile, strong jaw jutting out like the prow of a ship.

“That guy? The LA philharmonic benefactor?”

“He probably does donate to the arts, doesn’t he?” Bitty adds, hearing his own wonderment.

“Bittle, he looks – he’s old enough to be your father.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh, sure. He’s a prematurely grey, 30-year-old millionaire.”

Bitty snorts.

“You don’t know that he’s a millionaire.”

“And I don’t know that Rolex isn’t a fake.”

“Wow, Mr. Horologist here,” Bitty teases, earning as disconcerted an expression as Jack is able to make. “That was a joke, because I know you’re not an expert in watches. What else I know is, he’s a hunk, a hunk of burning love, and I’ve been cold for a mighty long time.”

 

“Bittle,” Jack starts seriously, “guys like that… look, he’s just going to take advantage of you.”

“Take advantage of me? What do you think I am, sixteen years old?”

“No, but –”

“I don’t know why you’re being like this. You wanted me to hook up with someone; I’m going to hook up with someone. Just because it’s not someone you picked out –”

“That’s not what I meant –”

“Who I get naughty with is none of your business, Jack Zimmermann.”

 

“Hello.” George has appeared by Jack’s shoulder, holding a tall glass for Bitty, and a short glass of whiskey on ice for himself. “I feel like I should let you know that I heard all that. This is for you,” he sets the vodka down for Bitty, “and I’ll be over there if you decide you want to… get naughty.”

 

Bitty watches him work his way to a recently vacated booth, sliding in and resting his elbow on the back with casual ease. Bitty picks up his drink.

“Go home, Jack,” he bites, barely brushing him as he passes. He doesn’t look back.

 

\---

 

Jack had been right about one thing, at least: George was loaded. They drink their drinks, and George whispers something low and sultry in Bitty’s ear, and they collect his car from the valet. The car is sleek and silver, just like George, and the leather seats are warmed from the inside. George’s house is also flashy, a mid-century modern marvel of angles and glass, and is nestled high in the Hills.

 

His bed is a King, and it is luxuriously soft. His prowess in it isn’t too shabby, either. He kisses like the cover of every erotic novel ever written, and although they don’t do anything that surprises Bitty, he still watches the very first glimmers of sunrise from George’s balcony with a bone-deep satisfaction.

 

When Bitty feels it’s time to leave, George calls him a car which delivers him to the door of his apartment building. It’s the wee hours of the morning, sky barely lightening and streetlights still on. Bitty turns his key in the lock as quietly as he can, and removes his shoes to pad through the apartment in his sock feet.

 

When he reaches the corridor and Jack’s bedroom door opens, he pulls up short, expecting to have to rehash the fight from the bar. He isn’t about to make any apologies.

 

The man who comes out of Jack’s bedroom, though, isn’t Jack.

 

Like Bitty, he has his shoes in his hand. His flannel shirt is unbuttoned over his chest, and his jeans are cuffed at the bottom. His hair is dark and chin length, and as Bitty watches, he shoves it back from his face with his free hand after quietly shutting the door. He starts to sneak his way toward the front door, before he looks up and catches sight of Bitty, standing frozen with his jaw on the floor.

“Hi,” the guy says.

“Hi,” Bitty says back.

 

The guy’s expression melts into a sheepish smile, and he gives Bitty a little shrug, like, _what are you gonna do?_

 

He sneaks past Bitty, and it’s a moment before the door shuts behind him.


	5. beans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re quiet,” Jack observes. Bitty scoffs in response, as derisively as he can manage.  
> “I’m quiet? I’m normal. You’re the one who’s quiet.”  
> “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you be silent for this long. Has something happened? Did that singer woman you like reveal publicly that she doesn’t enjoy pie?”  
> A thought screeches unbidden across Bitty’s brain: _I know your secret even though you clearly didn’t want me to know._
> 
> * * *
> 
> When Eric Bittle catches his boyfriend cheating on him in their own home, he takes to Craigslist to find replacement accommodation -- and ends up in a loft with three men, one of whom may have been put on this Earth to test him.
> 
> A Check, Please! New Girl AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a gap between chapters! I'm kind of just writing when I have the time, so updates are sort of at the whim of my free hours. Thanks to everyone who read, kudos-ed, and/or commented on the previous chapters! It's making this a joy to post.
> 
> Reminder too that there is a romcom-ready playlist over on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/whyfrenchfry/playlist/4G4X8VW8F19imQWRua3Vxr?si=4XvOWuIPSOmCCfEfFI8UVA) if you're looking for something to get you in a silly mood. See if you can pick the scenes I was thinking of when I chose the songs ;))
> 
> A final thanks for coming back! Hope you enjoy where this goes.

“So what did you crazy kids do together?”

Shitty reclines in one of the rooftop banana lounges, heart-shaped sunglasses slapped across his face and his hair pulled into a sloppy topknot. The sun beats down on his bare chest, hints of red already blooming under the skin. Bitty, for his part, is at least wearing sunblock as he waters his herbs.

“Well, we went to the supermarket – George didn’t come inside, because he had to go to the bank – and then we went back to his place –”

“Oh-ho-ho?”

“—and I cooked him lunch, and then –”

“Dessert?”

“No. He had a video call meeting to go to, so he gave me cab fare and I came back home. But look – he gave me too much!” Bitty extracts George’s change from his pocket; nearly fifty whole dollars. Shitty lowers his sunglasses to peer over the top of the lenses.

“Are you sure you went on a date? Because it sounds like he just hired you to cook lunch for him. That makes him a client, not a boyfriend.”

Bitty throws him a greasy look.

 

“Ha ha, well, joke’s on you. I don’t think he knows what I do.”

Shitty gapes for a moment, before nudging his glasses up his nose and leaning back in his chair with his hands folded over his stomach.

“Yeah, you sure told me. Your boyfriend doesn’t know what job you have, but I’ve got egg on my face.”

Bitty scoffs, and turns bodily away from Shitty, hiding his hot face in the leaves of his mint. It is true that he and George hadn’t yet broached the topic of Bitty’s career, but it was hard to bring up catering and personal cheffing when George was talking about campaigns and deliverables and ROIs.

 

In all honesty, he isn’t one-hundred-percent on what George does, either.

 

“What does he think of the boys?” Shitty is asking, serving to jolt Bitty from his thoughts. He turns his attention to the lemon tree, forcefully scooping fertilizer around its roots using a tiny yellow trowel which Lardo had bought for him.

“He hasn’t met them.”

“What, he comes and does the dirty, and fucks off like a thief in the night?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that a lot of my jobs have been around the Hills anyway, and it’s just – the traffic, oh my Lord. It’s easier to just bring myself to him.”

“Like the Uber Eats of sex.”

Bitty _tsks_ , casting a cautionary look over his shoulder. Shitty is still reclining, face tilted towards the sun.

“You’re making me sound like a kept boy.”

“You would make millions as a sugar baby. Billions.”

 

It is an opportune moment, of course, for Jack to appear – which he does, holding a furled and worn paperback book, and an overly large bottle of water. He has sunglasses in his hair, making it stick in wild directions. He seems vaguely irritated at finding the roof occupied.

“I didn’t know anyone was up here.”

“What’re you sneakin’ around for? Do you come up here to hide your reading?”

“Haven’t you heard, Jacky Z? Reading is dope. Don’t be ashamed.”

Jack actually does shift to move his book behind his body, which only serves to further pique Bitty’s interest. He’s prevented from launching a full-scale interrogation when Ransom and Holster appear behind Jack on the stairwell, hefting a telescope between them.

“Move that ass, number one.”

“Skate, skate, skate!”

Jack vacates the doorway with a groan, and Ransom and Holster shoulder past to position their cargo at the edge of the roof. They spend some time aiming it, giving each other a no-look high-five when they find their mark.

 

“As a person of the legal profession,” Shitty begins, still with an air of laziness as he clasps his hands behind his head, “I feel obliged to warn you that being a creeper is not cool, brahs.”

“People are going ape-shit in the BigMart parking lot.”

“They’ve got a sale on canned beans and everyone is just losing their freaking minds,” Ransom guffaws as he leans to look through the eyepiece. “It was on TV.”

“Oh! I wanted to make beans and rice tomorrow. Maybe we should go down there,” Bitty muses, wandering up to the telescope to take his turn looking through. As he watches, a man loses control of his cart full of cans, it tipping over and sending his cargo rolling across the asphalt. The people around him scramble for the loose tins, even as he tries to scoop them all into his arms. “It doesn’t even look that bad,” he observes. “You ain’t seen nothin’ until you’ve been at the supermarket in Madison on Thanksgiving Eve.” Bitty has more than one fond memory of protecting his cart and its precious turkey cargo from poachers by brandishing a breadstick and a sweet potato.

 

Turning back around, he finds that Jack has settled into the banana lounge next to Shitty, and has slipped his shades down over his eyes. His book sits unopened in his lap.

 

Bitty hasn’t mentioned the guy he saw leaving Jack’s room. He hasn’t mentioned the spiraling internal arguments he has had about said guy: that he could have been a handyman helping Jack flip his mattress. That he could have been one of Jack’s clients, having a late-night training session. That he could have been Jack’s cousin, stopping in for a quick visit before catching a plane back to Montreal. There are many, non-sex-related explanations, and Bitty has considered them all – he just hasn’t had a chance to talk about them with Jack. In fact, he hasn’t been alone with Jack since the bar.

 

Now, when Jack raises his eyebrow in Bitty’s direction, Bitty deliberately looks away and re-focuses his attention on Shitty.

“You’re turnin’ into a lobster. C’mon, up. We’re going to buy beans.”

Shitty shakes his head, checking his watch and struggling his way out of his chair.

“No can do, Bits. I’m in mediation this afternoon.”

“I forgot you have a job, man,” Ransom comments while Holster is bent over the telescope. “Good for you.”

Bitty zeroes in on him.

“Ransom! Come buy beans with me. We can get bubble tea afterwards,” he teases, raising his eyebrows in what he hopes is an enticing way.

“Get in the middle of that? Nah, I like being alive, thanks.”

“Holster –”

“Hard no. This is my Saturday, and I’m not spending it wrestling a mother of five over some legumes.”

 

Bitty sighs inwardly, biting back on a reluctant groan as he finally turns to Jack, finding he is being regarded with an unreadable expression, partially obscured by Jack’s Wayfarers.

“J… Ja-ack,” he starts, it coming out stilted and clearly reluctant.

“Okay.”

“Don’t you have a book to read?”

This comment gets Ransom and Holster both looking over to Jack, and, inexplicably, both of them erupting into theatrical groans.

“Please god, no.”

“How is it that time of year already? Didn’t we just do this?” Ransom demands, BigMart temporarily forgotten.

“It’s been a year.” Jack is avoiding eyes, gaze directed to the book still in his lap, hands fidgeting with the pages. It takes Bitty a moment to notice that it doesn’t actually have a cover, and it is barely being held together with duct tape.

“What’s the book?” he asks, and immediately regrets it.

 

“The most boring –” Holster starts in, and is cut across by Ransom yelling, “The single most useless –”

“It’s the complete history of the NHL,” Jack interjects with a quiet intensity, smoothing his hand over the first page. “I read it every year.”

“What you do can’t be called reading. He gets disgusting,” Ransom tells Bitty, Holster nodding approval beside him. “He reads it start to finish and doesn’t eat, shave, or shower for the duration. He somehow ends up in his underwear every damn time, and he whispers under his breath in French in a voice that will give me nightmares until I die. He gets crazy eyes. He’s trying to hide them with the sunglasses, but they’ve started. I know it.”

“It’s a good book,” Jack murmurs.

“It is not. I tried reading it once, and I wanted my corneas to detach themselves by the second page. It is the driest, most boring book –”

“For the driest, most boring man alive,” Holster adds. “You can bore for Canada, Zimmermann. The championship of bore.”

 

“Oh, see now. That sounds like it deserves all your energy. I’ll go to BigMart by myself.”

“No, I need some more duct tape before I start anyway. I can feel it about to lose some pages.” Jack tucks the book under his arm, pushing his sunglasses back into his hair as he lurches to his feet. Bitty bites back on a groan.

 

\---

 

Down on the street, it’s the kind of day where the sidewalk feels sticky. Bitty starts to get the early pricking of sweat on the back of his neck. He refuses to make any noise of discomfort, though. It could spark a conversation – a conversation which he is staunchly trying to avoid. He hasn’t said a single word to Jack since they left the roof together, and Jack seems only too happy to comply to the code of silence.

 

Bitty’s reluctance to mention what he saw – or even speak to Jack at all, for that matter – is nothing to do with the implications of what he saw, and everything to do with the fact of having also seen Jack naked. That, combined with witnessing the departure of a possible one night stand, sets Bitty up for being accused of ‘crossing boundaries.’ Said boundaries have been carefully built and solidified, parameters including wearing headphones while listening to music, and not using any of Jack’s protein powder. Nosing around in his sex life (if that’s even what it was) would be surely grounds for Jack advocating for Bitty’s removal from the apartment. He would also be lying if he said that he didn’t want Jack to not hate him.

 

So now, he bites his lip and pockets his hands, and does his best to match Jack’s strides while staring steadfastly ahead. It isn’t long, though, before he gets the feeling of being watched – that hint in his periphery and slight burning in his ears. When he turns to look, it’s still a weird shock to find that Jack is regarding him over the top of his sunglasses.

“You’re quiet,” Jack observes. Bitty scoffs in response, as derisively as he can manage.

“I’m quiet? I’m normal. You’re the one who’s quiet.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you be silent for this long. Has something happened? Did that singer woman you like reveal publicly that she doesn’t enjoy pie?”

A thought screeches unbidden across Bitty’s brain: _I know your secret even though you clearly didn’t want me to know._

Rather than saying that aloud, Bitty hears himself make a noise somewhere between a scream and a laugh. Jack raises his eyebrows before going back to looking where he is going. Bitty follows suit. The silence drops again, until Jack clears his throat.

“Is it – uh, the other day. The thing that happened.” Bitty experiences the shocking sensation of all the blood draining from his face, but then Jack continues. “The bar. When we… disagreed.”

“When you stuck your nose in my business?” He holds back the wince of hypocrisy that threatens to take over his face. “Apology accepted.”

“I didn’t apologize. I was just going to say that we should call it even, considering what you said about Camilla.”

“What I said?” It makes Bitty draw up short on the footpath, meaning he has to jog a few steps to catch back up to Jack. “You were the one who was about to give me all the gory details. I was content minding myself.”

“Is that why you burst in on me while I was in the shower?”

Bitty sputters.

“You said – locker room! You said it was fine and you didn’t care. Locker room, Jack!”

 

Jack’s nose crinkles slightly, and he raises an eyebrow.

“That was a joke. I really don’t care.”

“Well forgive me for not noticing the difference between you making a joke and you airing legitimate grievances. You’re like every single one of my passive aggressive Southern aunts.”

Unsurprisingly, Jack frowns.

“Takes one to know one.”

“What is this, middle school? Chirp me like a grown up, Zimmermann.”

“Oh, do you want me to call you a fucking pigeon? Coo, Bittle. Coo coo.” His pigeon noises are frighteningly accurate, which is something that sends a spike of annoyance up Bitty’s spine.

“You’re the pigeon. Just… shush. We’re getting beans.”

He strides off, putting as much distance between Jack and himself that he can, thankful that the BigMart is only another block away.

 

\---

 

The parking lot outside BigMart is at a crisis point. Navigating it requires Jack acting as a battering ram to splinter their way through the crowd, and the shelves are nearly picked clean when they finally find the bean aisle. The culprits, though, seem to have dispersed: there are very few people in the actual store. All that seems to be left of the beans are two trays on the topmost shelf, far from the reach of even Jack’s enormous wingspan. He disappears while Bitty is stretching helplessly toward the cans, and returns with a wheeled step ladder, climbing it to lifting one of the trays down. He descends to hand it off to Bitty, before climbing back up to retrieve the second tray.

 

At the sight of Jack hefting an entire tray of beans into his arms, a bead of sweat works its way insistently down Bitty’s back. Jack’s biceps are posing a threat to the seams in the sleeves of his shirt, and yet he holds the weight of the beans with the same ease as if it were one can. Bitty hides his slowly heating face in his own tray, leveraging it against his chest and already striding purposefully back to the checkout. He has to move quickly, because his tray of beans has already clearly caught the attention of one woman with a walking frame, and a man wheeling a stroller in which his toddler has two cans in its lap. Bitty doesn’t make sure that Jack is following, but gets confirmation when Jack’s voice appears startlingly close to his ear once they’re in the checkout queue.

“I don’t really get why you need this many beans. We’re four people.”

“They’re non-perishable, Jack. Honestly. I’m preparing for the winter.”

“It’s July.”

“Back off,” Bitty nearly whines, rolling his shoulder in an attempt to shove Jack away from him. “It’s a hundred degrees in here and you’re way too up in my business.”

Jack does step back, but he still has his sunglasses in his hair, and is still holding his tray of beans in a way that accentuates the entirety of his arms. He still has a slight flush in his cheeks, from the heat.

 

Bitty turns his face toward the fan over the cash register, straining up on his toes to catch the breeze when it works its way around to him. He tries to focus on things that aren’t Jack: the use the beans will be put to; getting home and reclining under the air conditioner; his date with George set for that evening, and the possible use of George’s in-ground pool. The fan is rotated toward the cashier, blowing their long hair wildly for a brief moment, when it shuts off entirely. It isn’t the only thing, either. The large fluorescents dangling from the ceiling flicker out. The doors shut, unresponsive to the people trying to leave. The lights on the cash register blink and die.

“Oh,” Jack says.

 

Bitty turns large eyes and raised eyebrows on him, feeling his mouth gaping a little. He can’t make words for a moment, the only thing coming out being an echo of Jack’s, “oh.” He says it again, louder and more insistent.

“I think the power’s out,” Jack tells him. Bitty stares back.

“You think that, do you? Did you piece that together yourself?”

“We just need to stay calm. They’ll get someone to open the doors soon.”

“Oh, Janine’s not in today,” offers the cashier, leaning around the register to address Jack and Bitty. “She has the manual override.”

“Do you hear that, Jack?” Bitty asks, hefting his tray of beans a little higher and widening his eyes impossibly further. “Janine’s not in. I’m going to miss my date and we’re going to die in here, because Janine’s not in.”

The small and familiar crease appears between Jack’s eyes, and he even squints a little. He licks his lips thoughtfully, slowly, before asking, “You’ve got a date?”

 

Bitty snorts.

“Yes. And before you start throwing around accusations billionaires and sugar babies, yes it is with George, and yes I am going to his house to cook him a romantic dinner. He says he doesn’t cook much.”

Jack sniffs, still squinting.

“Sugar babies? I didn’t say anything –”

“Don’t. Just, don’t.”

“But if you’re feeling like a sugar baby, maybe –”

“Don’t! Shut your mouth. This isn’t any of your business anyway. I stay out of your stuff and who all you make whoopee with and goes sneakin’ out of your room before the cock crows, so you can stay out of mine.”

“Okay. Fine.” Jack shrugs in a non-committal way, before stooping to set his tray of beans on the ground and settling himself into sitting on top of them. He looks up at Bitty expectantly. Bitty sighs, but puts his beans down and lowers himself onto them. It isn’t comfortable by any stretch, but it seems slightly cooler closer to the concrete ground. He gingerly lays his hands on his knees, wary of touching the floor with anything unclothed.

 

That silence settles between them again, and Jack’s knees fall apart, a mere hair’s breadth separating it from Bitty’s. Bitty finds himself starting at the point of near contact, feeling the stuffy heat of proximity with another person. He fans himself with his hands, blowing out in a gust of a sigh and closing his eyes.

“What did you mean?” Jack asks him, and Bitty cracks open his eyes to see Jack leaning back on his hands, shoulders pulling his shirt across his chest and legs spread wide.

“Mean when?” Bitty pulls the neck of his own shirt away from his chest and blows down into it. It’s also an excuse to avoid looking at Jack, and seeing that expectant expression.

“Just then. When you said you saw people sneaking out of my room. When did you see that?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You literally just did,” Jack insists through a bewildered sort of laugh, shaking his head a little. “You said you saw people. When?”

Bitty squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, trying to swallow despite his dehydration and the apparent stone in his throat. Feeling sweaty all over, he scrubs a hand through his hair with little care for what it looks like when he has finished. He sees Jack track the movement with his eyes, before flicking back to meet Bitty’s. Bitty looks away.

 

“I did see someone,” he confesses. “But I didn’t want to say anything, because – well, boundaries. I absolutely wasn’t snooping on purpose. I was just doin’ my little walk of shame, and – actually, you know what? It wasn’t a walk of shame. I felt great. It was a… a stride of pride, if anything. I don’t know why we put the onus on the person who leaves as being the one who did something bad, when the reality is that they just successfully had a sexual encounter and –”

“Bittle. Come on.”

Bitty glances back to him. Jack’s expression is blank and unreadable. The positive, Bitty supposes, is that he isn’t frowning. He is still disheveled from the heat, and at this distance, Bitty can see the sweat beading on his forehead. He has a momentary urge to lick it. He chokes it down with a cough, and averts his gaze again.

“I did see someone. But I didn’t think you’d want to talk about it, seeing as you hadn’t… mentioned this, uh – type. Of someone.”

 

Jack is quiet again, for long enough that Bitty sneaks another peek at him. Jack is looking at his own lap, brow furrowed and mouth set in a contemplative grimace. He stays leaning back on his hands, but does roll one shoulder in a gesture that exudes discomfort.

“I will not say a single thing,” Bitty insists, fighting down the impulse to lay his hand reassuringly on Jack’s knee. “I promise, Jack. I won’t tell –”

“They know. Kind of. I told them not to tell you, but they know.”

Bitty presses his fingers into his knees, itch to touch Jack in comfort still raging wildly inside him. It’s more than a social nicety, more than the perfunctory pats he had laid on Trunk’s back when he had been crying. Jack is far from crying; if anything, he seems confused. Bitty coughs again, fighting his other desire to fill the silence with chatter. Jack clears his own throat, mouth working silently for a few moments before he speaks.

 

“When you moved in, I thought you were just, like, the person version of an animal sidekick from an animated movie. But you’re actually – you’re alright, Bittle.”

He is finally looking at Bitty, wry suggestion of a smile hanging around his mouth. Bitty snorts into a laugh. After a second, Jack is laughing too, through a wide smile, bright and light in a way that Bitty hasn’t heard before. It spurs him on, and then Jack is jostling their shoulders together and cuffing him on the back of the neck, and Bitty is squawking in protest.

“Watch the roughhousing, Mr. Zimmermann. I have somewhere to be this evening, and I can’t show up with bruises.”

 

Jack does stop, smile freezing at an odd angle. He chuckles once and adjusts his sunglasses in his hair, before wiping the back of his hand over his mouth.

“Yeah, uh. Your date, right? With George?”

“Yes, with George. I know what you’re doing to say –”

“I don’t think you do.”

“—but it’s my choice to get picked up in a shiny car and taken up to the Hills to cook in a pristine Thermador.”

There is a beat before Jack speaks again.

“I’m going to ask you something, and I think you need to be honest with me.”

Bitty swallows stickily.

“What?”

“Are you only seeing him for his oven?”

“What? Excuse me,” Bitty scoffs, “I am offended. You’re calling me a gold digger.”

“I’m not calling you a gold digger. If anything, I’m calling you an oven whore.”

Bitty pushes his arm, and Jack pushes back, so Bitty holds up a threatening finger and says, “Stop,” in his most commanding voice. Jack just pushes him again, sending him toppling off the beans and onto the market floor. He sits in shock for a moment before hauling himself to his feet, holding his hands aloft and feeling his mouth curling with disgust.

“Ugh, Jack, the ground –”

“I thought you weren’t afraid to get a little dirty.”

 

It’s then that the whirr of the rotating fan starts up again, covering Bitty’s sharp inhalation. The breeze of it ruffles his hair, and the lights from above illuminate Jack in his position on the ground, still leaning back on his hands with his legs spread wide. There is a smattering of applause from the shoppers in the store, and numerous people abandon their shopping carts in preference of escaping through the newly opened doors. Jack, for his part, holds Bitty’s gaze for a moment before rising to his feet in one fluid movement. He bends to heft his beans up again, and indicates Bitty’s tray with a raised eyebrow.

 

They’re partway back to the loft, each carrying their own trays of beans, when Bitty remembers.

“Didn’t you need duct tape? For your sad excuse of a book.”

Jack looks at him blankly for a moment, then shrugs.

“It’ll hold. I’ll just go slowly.”

Bitty watches him walk for a few steps, then has to jog a little to catch back up. He gets a jostle to the shoulder for his troubles.


	6. trent perry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you okay? I mean, the cleaning is kind of… well, it’s a little nutty. I’m sure your friend won’t mind if there’s carpet marks under the coffee table.”  
> Jack nearly winces, mouth down-turning in a passable imitation of a turtle, and clears his throat.  
> “It’s nothing. I’m just… it’s nerves, eh? I haven’t seen him since I did my knee. You know, the doctors described it as a skin tunnel full of cartilage.”  
> “That’s a delightful image to have. Thank you for that.”
> 
> * * *
> 
> When Eric Bittle catches his boyfriend cheating on him in their own home, he takes to Craigslist to find replacement accommodation -- and ends up in a loft with three men, one of whom may have been put on this Earth to test him.
> 
> A Check, Please! New Girl AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! This chapter has the most direct show references in it. I have been trying not to pull lines directly from New Girl, but there are couple in here that were just too good to pass up. Hopefully they slot in well enough!
> 
> Thanks again to everyone reading and commenting on this. It did start off as just something silly, but I'm really enjoying writing it! Remember that if you want to get in the mood, there is a stupid rom-com playlist [to be found here](https://open.spotify.com/user/whyfrenchfry/playlist/4G4X8VW8F19imQWRua3Vxr?si=4XvOWuIPSOmCCfEfFI8UVA).
> 
> This chapter is generally a little heavy on the drama, but hopefully it's still heavy on the funny too. Let me know what you like!

Bitty lets out a strangled yell when he pulls back the shower curtain and finds Jack crouched inside. The sight itself is incongruous and shocking: Jack is wearing rubber gloves, and is using a scrubbing brush to attack the grout between the tiles on the floor.

“Just once,” Bitty breathes out, hand clasped over his heart in vain hope of slowing the beating, “I’d like to open this shower without finding you inside. It’s like reverse Psycho.”

“It’s good you’re showering, actually. You can rinse the tiles.”

“I cleaned it two days ago. You’re scrubbing where it’s already clean.”

“You did?”

Jack resumes his scrubbing. Bitty makes as scandalized a noise as he can muster, hand still fisted in his shirt.

“Excuse me? Yes offence. What kind of lazy slob do you think I am? Do I look like the husband on a sitcom to you?”

“We’re having a guest.” Jack wipes at his forehead with the back of his wrist, and sits back on his haunches to look up at Bitty. His hair is a mess, and there is a wild sort of tension about his eyes. His pupils are absolute pinpricks.

“Is this guest named Beyoncé Knowles Carter? Because you should know there is absolutely no one else worthy of hospital grade cleaning.” Bitty folds his arms, jutting out his hip in his most disapproving stance. “Are you going to be entertaining your guest in here? Just erase that thought from my brain, please. This is a common area; it is where I bathe myself. There are bylaws. You should know that. You co-signed them.”

 

Jack lets out a deep and rumbling sort of sigh, and pushes himself to standing before easing past Bitty to get at the sink. He smells like bleach and his woodsy aftershave, and Bitty finds himself leaning towards him, just slightly.

“They won’t be in here. They’re only coming for an hour.” Jack snaps the gloves off and lays them over the rim of the sink, before turning the faucet the wash his hands. “I hope they’re only coming for an hour.”

Bittle wrinkles his nose.

“What is this? Like, a booty call? Are you just hittin’ it and quittin’ it?”

Jack’s expression slips into what can only be described as a glower. It is almost startling in its seriousness, and the absolute opposite of the reaction which Bitty had been wanting.

“Absolutely not,” Jack says, turning off the faucet with a kind of aggressive decisiveness. Bitty squints at him in the mirror, a gaze which Jack does not meet, instead edging past to get to his towel where it hangs on the wall. He dries his hands with hunched shoulders, then pockets them and turns to face Bitty again.

“It’s someone from… someone I know through hockey.” Bitty gets a thrill of excitement that he hasn’t experienced since he first saw and recognized Jack, in this very bathroom.

“An NHL player? Is it someone from your team? Is it Sebastien St. Martin? Is it Randall Robinson? Is it – oh my goodness, is it Alexei Mashkov? Maybe we should slip Ransom a Xanax. He could go into cardiac arrest.” Jack opens his mouth to reply, but Bitty steamrolls on. “Is it your AGM, Georgia Martin? We both know I’m gay, but can I just say, mother may I?”

Jack stares at him.

“Maybe you’re the one who needs the Xanax. It’s no one from the Falconers. And Ransom and Holster have met him already. Once, they’ve met him once.”

 

Bitty peers at him, but Jack appears to have spent all his conversation currency for the time being.

“Fine. Keep your secrets. But I don’t know what you’re being all tight about; I’ll meet him when he gets here anyway.”

Jack’s eyes widen minutely, and he presses his lips together until they go white.

“You’re not – uh, you’re not working today? Or seeing George?”

“Nope. Weirdly, no one throws catered events on Mondays. And George has some kind of deal… merger… thing. I don’t really know; he still hasn’t quite explained to me what he does. It’s something about banks, but it’s not a bank. I think he said something about mixing concrete once. His whole company went to Tulum last year for some reason.”

“I feel like you’re going to want to circle back to that at some point, but I don’t have the time right now. I need to steam-clean the couch.”

“That’s allowed?” Bitty has to raise his voice to ask this, because Jack has already swept past him out the bathroom door. “Jack? Holster said not to touch the couch! Is that allowed?”

A reply doesn’t come, and Bitty is left in the silent bathroom with folded arms and a heavy feeling deep in his gut. It’s too long before he remembers he was going to take a shower.

 

\---

 

Bitty takes his feelings out with a whisk. Conveniently for him, his own strength is the only way of getting his buttercream light and fluffy, seeing as they don’t own a Mixmaster. He is being watched by Ransom, who sits at the kitchen island, licking at a spoon of cupcake batter.

“These don’t taste like champagne,” he observes, but continues licking anyway. Bitty tuts at him.

“It’s more about the texture, actually.”

He keeps beating, even with the mixture completely smooth and the soft yellow coloring completely combined. His arm is, truthfully, getting a little tired.

 

“Bitty, do we need to talk about this? Because – and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but here we are – I feel like forty-eight cupcakes is already enough cupcakes.” Said cupcakes are covering most of the kitchen island, unfrosted and present in four different varieties, including chocolate beetroot and pistachio strawberry. Bitty spares them as careless a glance as he can muster, before glaring heavily at Ransom.

“There are never enough, Justin Oluransi.” He sniffs, and sets the bowl down on the counter none too gently. He then reaches over to yank the spoon out of Ransom’s hand, which gets him a protesting huff in response. He throws the spoon into the sink. “And how come Jack is allowed to go full ‘Whistle While We Work’ on the loft, and I’m not allowed to bake what is, I’ll admit, a slightly overzealous amount of cupcakes?”

“Nah, see. He doesn’t talk about what he feels. He buries it down, deep inside, and one day one of two things will happen: he will physically explode and splatter everything with goo; or he’ll just go completely comatose and won’t wake up ever again. I’ve got a twenty riding on the first one.”

The oven timer dings, so Bitty slides his hands into his oven mitts and leans down to retrieve the baked cupcakes from the oven. He drops them onto the stovetop, perhaps a little too carelessly, and shakes the mitts free.

 

“All I’m doing is preparing for our guest. He might not like lemon blueberry. Like my Moo Maw always says: make sure you over-prepare, to shut them the fuck up.”

“Your grandmother says that? Really?”

Bitty chooses not to reply to that.

“He’s just bein’ so cagey, I’m half expecting Wayne Gretzky to walk through that door.”

Ransom levels him with a considering look, and bites into his lip briefly. He scratches at his eyebrow, then raps his knuckles on the countertop.

“I’m not sticking myself in this. You can interrogate Jack about it if you want. But I’m not the nosy one.”

 

\---

 

Bitty interrogates Jack.

 

He finds him in his room with the door open, staring at two near-identical flannel shirts laid out on his bed.

“J’accuse, Zimmermann. La cuisine est très chaude.”

Jack looks up at the intrusion, and blinks at Bitty quizzically.

“You just said, ‘I accuse you, Zimmermann. The kitchen is very hot.’”

“I did, and it definitely is.” Bitty steps into the room properly, folding his arms low on his chest in a way that is really more holding his stomach – as apologetic a stance as he can manage, more so than anything outwardly defensive. He scuffs his foot a little, suddenly uncertain. “Are you okay? I mean, the cleaning is kind of… well, it’s a little nutty. I’m sure your friend won’t mind if there’s carpet marks under the coffee table.”

Jack nearly winces, mouth down-turning in a passable imitation of a turtle, and clears his throat.

“It’s nothing. I’m just… it’s nerves, eh? I haven’t seen him since I did my knee. You know, the doctors described it as a skin tunnel full of cartilage.”

“That’s a delightful image to have. Thank you for that.”

 

Jack clears his throat again, line of sight darting between Bitty and his two flannel shirt options.

“Which one should I wear?”

“Are you asking me because I’m gay? That’s homophobia, Jack. Don’t stereotype me.”

The joke gets no recognition; Jack presses on as though Bitty hadn’t spoken at all.

“I need to look like I’m doing fine. Like I’ve got my life in order.”

“Do you, though? You’re 30, you work at a gym, and you live in a loft with three roommates.”

“If you’re not going to help me, go back to the kitchen.”

 

Bitty sighs in a put-upon way, and nears the bed so he can appraise the shirts properly. On closer inspection, one is red with a black plaid pattern, and the other is black with a red plaid pattern. He points to the first one.

“That one is full-tilt gainfully employed Canadian lumberjack. I’d invite him to meet my parents, and let him babysit my kids.”

“Right.” Jack scoops it from the bed and wrestles it on, buttoning it over his plain white t-shirt. “Just so you know, this isn’t nuts. You haven’t seen nuts from me yet.”

“Is that a promise, or a threat?” Once again, Jack doesn’t seem to recognize the joke. “Do you want me to stick around? If you’re so nervous. I’ll fight your corner. Like you did with Barry.” Jack makes another, different pained expression. “Or not. I’ll lock myself in my room. You won’t hear a peep.”

 

Jack watches him with a countenance on the line between anxious and intensely aggressive, hands hovering around the top button of his shirt. After a moment, he lowers his hands slowly to fold his arms defensively over his chest. He nods, three times in quick succession.

“You should pretend to be my boyfriend.”

Bitty’s entire body goes over all cold. He hears himself make a noise like, _pshaw_. He doesn’t get a chance to add to it, though, because Jack is still talking.

“It would just be to get him off my back. He knows how to push my buttons. If he thinks I’m in a relationship, he won’t try it on.”

“’Try it on’? Who is this person, a middle-aged housewife starved for male attention?”

“You’re actually not too far off the mark.”

Bitty bites into his lip, mulling over the mountain of cupcakes in the kitchen, the last night he spent at George’s house (whipped cream was involved), and the literally unforgettable sight of Jack naked in the shower. With these three realities combined, the answer he arrives on is –

“Fine.”

Jack’s eyebrows ascend rapidly towards his hairline. He gapes briefly, and the realization that he hadn’t been expecting an agreement settles heavily in Bitty’s throat. He’s on the verge of laughing it off, and a forced chuckle does eek its way out, when Jack nods again.

 

“Great. Cool. Thanks.” He pronounces _cool_ with a purposeful sort of accent, an odd reminder that there is so much Bitty doesn’t know about him, and so much he still wants to learn – starting, his gossip-loving heart be damned, with the identity of the person about to descend on their apartment. He clears his throat.

“Seeing as I’m your boyfriend now –” he almost chokes on the words, something about them feverish and ridiculous – “I think I deserve to know who is going to be eating my cupcakes.”

 

\---

 

Stanley Cup Winner Kent Parson is on Bitty’s threshold. He is visible over Jack’s shoulder as Bitty loiters around the couch, spying as Jack answers the door. He has artfully tousled hair, and is almost a match to Jack in his own flannel shirt. Even at a distance, his confidence is clear – probably the kind of confidence that comes from being a serial Art Ross award winner, and having three Cups under one’s belt before age 30. Bitty clutches at his nonexistent pearls.

 

Stanley Cup Winner Kent Parson says, “Hey, Zimms,” and steps forward to give Jack a one-armed backslap of a hug. Jack returns the embrace, a second too late and a fraction too stiff, and Bitty’s stomach swoops with a tiny degree of understanding. _He injured his knee and his secret lover dumped him,_ Ransom had said. There had also been something about crying alone in his room while listening to Phil Collins.

 

This is why Bitty chooses to step forward, bright and overly-loud “Well, hey there!” tripping over his lips. Jack steps away from Kent Parson, and looks back to Bitty as though surprised to find him there.

“Honey, are you going to introduce us?” He fits himself into Jack’s side, worming an arm around his waist and laying his other hand on Jack’s chest. He directs a stare at Kent Parson, aware that when he doesn’t blink and makes his eyes wide, he can sometimes look like a haunted porcelain doll.

“Right. Uh,” Jack mutters, laying his own arm across Bitty’s shoulders like an afterthought. He does, though, punctuate it with a squeeze, so Bitty thinks he may have done something right. “This is Bittle. Bitty. My boyfriend. Bits, this is Kent.”

 

Kent Parson’s surprise is barely a flicker, before it washes over into a cool sort of disinterest which he channels directly at Bitty.

“You guys all shacked up?”

“We sure are,” Bitty butts in, patting at Jack’s chest before he can reply. “We have to be; we can’t keep our hands off each other! Nonstop doing it.” He finishes with a lilting laugh, which Jack adds to with his own uncertain chuckle. “Why don’t you come in? I’ll get you a cup of coffee. From our coffee machine, which we share.” He doesn’t detach from Jack as they welcome Kent Parson inside, nor as Jack closes the door behind him and they all cross to the kitchen. Jack, for his part, doesn’t step away either. If anything, he pulls Bitty closer.

 

Bitty has to extricate himself to get the coffee percolating, and that is when Kent Parson starts in on the questions.

“How long has this been happening?”

“Bits moved in four months ago. So, around eight months. Maybe nine.” The lie comes coolly and casually, and Bitty is more than mildly impressed.

“How lesbian of you.”

“If by that you mean ‘passionate and full of love’, then thank you,” Bitty pipes up from the coffee machine, flicking the switch before turning back and joining Jack again. Once again, Jack wraps his arm around Bitty’s shoulders in a vaguely proprietary way, and when Bitty speaks again, his voice comes out a little higher than usual. “I just can’t get enough of this big guy, right sweet-pea?”

“Yeah, you mentioned that.” Something around Kent’s eyes and tone of voice give Bitty the feeling that he’s being made fun of. Quietly, he bristles.

 

An expectant silence drops around them, and Bitty feels his urge to fill it bubbling up insistently, but then Jack clears his throat and says, “How about you? Have you been – I mean, you guys are doing well. Climbing the ladder.”

“You know.” Kent shrugs in an affected way, expression lazy and bordering on smug. “We’re winning.”

“You are, aren’t you? Yeah. Hmm.” Jack pats at Bitty’s shoulder, like an afterthought, before detaching himself entirely. “You know what, just… excuse me for second. Be right back.” The coffee machine beeps, and Jack stalks out of the kitchen in the direction of his room. Bitty watches him go, and holds in his sigh before turning to lift down two mugs and fill them both. He doesn’t ask how Kent takes his coffee.

 

“It’s nice to meet one of Jack’s friends,” he comments mildly, sliding the cup across the bench toward Kent. “He hasn’t mentioned you, though… Sorry, what was it again? Brent?”

“Kent.”

“Trent?”

“Kent. Kent Parson.”

“Perry?”

“Parson.”

“Oh, I give up,” Bitty says through an affected laugh, thrill of satisfaction in his smile as Parson stares at him with a stiff grimace. “Cupcake?” Bitty pulls one of the cupcake-laden plates towards them, angling it toward Kent provokingly. Kent eyes it for a moment, face washed over into something eerily impassive, before looking Bitty directly in the eyes.

“No, thanks. I’m not really a dessert person.”

Bitty feels his smile stick on his face, and his eyes widen all on their own. He almost wants to ask Kent if he is some sort of psychopath, but then Jack announces his reappearance with a loud, “Sorry about that. Just had to… yeah. Sorry.” His cheeks look a little recklessly red, and his hairline is a touch wet, almost like he had gone to dunk his face into a sink of cold water and hadn’t dried off properly.

 

“I was just telling – Itty, was it?” Kent asks pointedly, directing it at Jack and acting, for all intents, like Bitty isn’t even there. Jack doesn’t seem to notice though, and Bitty is the one who has to cut in with his actual name. Kent breezes on as though Bitty had said nothing. “I was saying that it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other. Missed ya, Zimms.” He combines this with a casual lean on the kitchen island, effectively cutting Bitty off from the conversation. Bitty buries his mounting rage in his cup of coffee, and ends up having to choke through a miscalculated sip. Neither Kent nor Jack pay him any mind.

 

Eyes streaming and throat raw, Bitty all but slams his cup down on the counter.

“Well, far be it from me to stand in the way of two chums reconnecting. I’ll just excuse myself, shall I?”

He roughly picks up one of the cupcake plates, resisting the urge to shoulder check Jack on his way past. He isn’t even sure, really, why he’s so mad; it’s a roiling emotion, hot in his gut and making his mouth taste sour. He is almost at his room when a hand claps down on his shoulder and forces him to turn.

 

It is, unsurprisingly, Jack.

“Where are you going?” he hisses, and Bitty gapes at him momentarily.

“I’m giving y’all some privacy. Seemed like you wanted it.”

“You’re supposed to be backing me up.” Bitty glares at him.

“Jack. Your boyfriend? He’s not a dessert person,” he hisses back, low as he can.

“He’s not my – what? What did he say to you?” Jack’s eyes land on the plate of cupcakes in Bitty’s hand. “Did you try and give him a cupcake? What were you doing?” His expression melts into a frown, and his voice turns sharp, though still low. “What did you say to him, Bittle?”

“Oh, last name. I’m in trouble now.” Bitty makes his tone as sarcastic as he can, and shoves the plate at Jack’s chest none too gently. “He’s screwing you around, Jack. I never thought you were dumb, but if you can’t see that, you must be.”

 

Jack takes the plate on reflex, but he doesn’t seem to notice; his brow has lowered, darkened, and is thunderous.

“I’m dumb, huh? What about you with freaking George?” He spits the name, literally, and Bitty has to wipe a fleck of it from his cheek. He starts to say, “you’re disgusting,” but Jack cuts across him and steamrolls on. “You’re kidding yourself, Bittle. He doesn’t give a shit about you! He only cares about your ass, and having some hot twink to show to his rich friends. He refuses to come here, and he only has time for you at his house. What does that tell you?”

“Don’t talk about my ass! You don’t get to talk about my ass.”

“Why not? I’ll talk about your ass all I want. Your ass is so small, it fills me with literal rage, Bittle. Your damn tiny ass would fit in one of my hands. I could cup the entire thing, in one palm.” He is still whispering, but in a way that threatens to cross into shouting at any moment. Bitty reciprocates.

“Stop talking about my ass! Your ass is – it’s freakishly huge, is what it is. The amount of glutes work you do to keep it that tight just doesn’t. Make. Sense. You don’t need it anymore! You’re just doing it to – to drive me crazy!”

“What about your frigging shorts? No one should wear shorts that short, unless they’re going to a jazzercise costume party, or they’re at the beach. Did you buy them in middle school? Or did you get them just because you know I can’t stop looking at your stupid tiny ass?”

“You want to talk about clothes? Buy some damn shirts that fit! Who do you think you are, Captain America? And why are your nipples always so hard? I can see them all the time, like they’re just saying, ‘touch us, Bitty! Touch the pectorals!’”

“Well, why don’t you?” Jack voice is hard, challenging and exasperated, and Bitty can’t back down from a challenge.

 

This is probably why he grits out, “Fine!” at regular volume, and lays his whole hand on Jack’s left pec, before squeezing.

“Ugh, why is it so firm? Are you flexing? You’re ridiculous.” He squeezes it once more, before turning sharply and stalking to his room. If he slams his door, it’s the least that Jack deserves.

 

He leans back against the wood, breathing coming a little hard, and fumes to himself for over a minute. It takes that long, actually, for what just happened to actually sink in: Jack had almost, nearly said he liked Bitty’s ass. Bitty had groped him in return. They definitely hadn’t reached a consensus on what Kent Parson was up to.

 

Bitty digs the heels of his palms into his eyes until the darkness starts to spark red, and leaves his eyes closed through hitting his head lightly against the door. Here he was, exiled to his room without any cupcakes, left alone to ruminate on whatever it was that had just happened. Angry flirting, maybe. A revelation of requited sexual attraction, perhaps. Something highly childish, definitely. The worst part, in Bitty’s estimation, is he now had no idea what was happening in the kitchen between Jack and Kent. He couldn’t reintroduce himself to the situation, not without a red face and at least a three foot distance between he and Jack at all times.

 

His pec had been really nice to grab.

 

Bitty groans, a long and trailing sound, and slumps forward to face-plant onto his bed. He pulls over a pillow to squash over his head, and lets loose another groan into the mattress.

 

\---

 

Bitty waits until he hears the front door, and then Jack’s door, definitively close (admittedly, a wait of around only fifteen minutes), before sneaking past in his sock feet and edging his way out of the apartment. He does stop briefly to peer through he peephole to check that Kent Parson is gone – thankfully, the hallway is empty.

 

He doesn’t think it over or even stop to text George before driving straight to his house. It will be a nice Monday surprise. A cute and quirky show of romance.

 

The traffic is an absolute bitch, and the sun is pulling low on the horizon by the time Bitty makes it into the Hills and down George’s driveway. Where there is usually only George’s silver college-tuition-on-wheels, there is another car, not dissimilar to Bitty’s, unassuming and small and in a chirpy shade of red. Bitty parks up behind this car, and strides to the front door with a sense of purpose. He rings the doorbell with purpose, too.

 

 

It is a little too long before George answers, and a little too weird when he does so with only a towel wrapped around his waist. He isn’t even wet. When he sees Bitty, his eyebrows flit up and he visibly swallows.

“Eric,” he says, and the word has a surprised inflection at the end.

“Surprised?” Bitty observes, stepping forward and readying himself to enter the house – which doesn’t happen, because George doesn’t move. “I’ve had the worst kind of day, and I thought, ‘what better way to unwind than with a glass of wine and my George?’”

“Right.” George’s voice is still coming a little high. “It’s just, uh, this isn’t a great time.” As he says it, his eyes dart down and to the left. Bitty follows his gaze, and lands on a pair of high-topped Air Force Ones, tossed casually just to the left of the doormat.

“Oh,” Bitty says, flatly. “I guess you’ve already got company.”

“What? Those? No. Uh, those are mine.”

“Nikes, George? The kind that fall off when you try to run?”

 

At that moment, someone calls, “Georgie?” from within the house. It’s a deep voice, and it is followed by the lithe body and tousled hair of a man taller than Bitty (and poutier than Bitty, and with sharper cheekbones than Bitty), who appears over George’s shoulder.

“Who’s this?” the man asks, single eyebrow raised. Bitty feels his cheeks heat.

“I’m nobody. Don’t mind me. I’m just… wrong house, I guess. Bye!” He tries to turn away and run back to his car, but for the second time that day, a hand grabs his shoulder. This time, he shakes it off roughly.

“Eric, wait.”

Bitty deigns to turn and face him, face still blazing.

 

“Why don’t you stick around? This could be good.” George punctuates this with a vague gesture encompassing all three of them, leading Bitty to take in the other man’s unimpressed expression. It sparks something within him.

“Ugh, really? You’re trying that?”

George drops both arms, and shakes his head a little.

“You know, we never said we weren’t seeing other people. I don’t get what it is with you twinks; you always seem to think you’re the only ones, when you’re actually a dime a –”

“Jack was right,” Bitty cuts across, louder than George and angrier than George and gut flooding with something like pride, “You’re a gross old man. Goodbye.”

 

He turns on his heel and almost jogs back to his car, heart thundering as he backs down the driveway. Phil Collins is on the radio. He turns it up.

 

\---

 

Painfully, yet expectedly, yet also thrillingly, Jack is sitting on the couch when Bittle wrestles his way into the apartment. He twists to look at Bitty over the back of the couch, and doesn’t say anything as Bitty slams the door shut behind him. They look at each other, and the moment stretches.

 

“Where did you go?” Jack finally asks, and his voice comes a little raspy.

“George’s. Where’s what’s-his-name?” he asks, even though he knows.

“I asked him to leave.” Silence again. Bitty doesn’t feel like he can blink, but what he can do is shuffle halfway toward the couch.

“Why do I keep getting cheated on?” Bitty asks, a little to the room, a little to himself, and even less to Jack. Jack still grunts in reply, then stands and shoves his hands in his pockets.

“I did warn you about him.”

Bitty scoffs.

“My god, can we not? Don’t do the ‘I told you so’ thing. It is unbecoming.” Through him saying this, Jack has stepped around the couch and shortened the distance between them. They are now only a few feet apart. “Smug doesn’t suit you,” Bitty tells him.

“I think it suits me well, actually. It’s my favourite suit of present.”

“Well, if you’re going to be like that –” Bitty makes to turn and retreat to his room, but he is grabbed at for the third time that day. This time, it’s Jack’s hand on his wrist, which Jack uses to tug and pull him in close enough to mash their lips together.

 

It is immediately hot, and Jack plunges in with his tongue, dropping Bitty’s arm to wrap around his waist with one hand and cup his head with the other. Bitty, for some reason, massages Jack’s tongue with his own, clutches at the back of Jack’s shirt, and makes a small and wanton noise. Jack kisses like a surging tide, building and rough, and Bitty can feel his stubble. He plies Bitty’s lips with his own, and Bitty plies right back, inhaling that woody scent of Jack’s cologne, and the slight sharpness of clean sweat. He raises his arms to throw them around Jack’s neck, leaning his body closer, and bites briefly at Jack’s bottom lip.

 

The kiss slows down as soon as it started, and suddenly Jack is planting two sweet and incongruous pecks to Bitty’s mouth, and stepping away from him.

“I’m sorry about George,” he says, and trudges off to his room, leaving Bitty alone in the lounge. His lips are buzzing, and they feel full when he lifts his hand to his mouth.


	7. missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Was she wearing shoes when you brought her here?”  
> “What? Uh, no. She said shoes impede her connection to the earth.”  
> “Oh my god, Holster. Was she washed?” Bitty put in, wrinkling his nose.  
> “Can I just interject to say – those dreads? Nasty.”  
> “Dreads, Holster. A shoeless white lady with dreads.”
> 
> * * *
> 
> When Eric Bittle catches his boyfriend cheating on him in their own home, he takes to Craigslist to find replacement accommodation -- and ends up in a loft with three men, one of whom may have been put on this Earth to test him.
> 
> A Check, Please! New Girl AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had particular fun writing this chapter! I don't really have anything to say about it apart from that, and that I hope you enjoy it too.
> 
> Reminder that there is a fic playlist, for all the stupid romcom vibes you could want. Play it [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/whyfrenchfry/playlist/4G4X8VW8F19imQWRua3Vxr?si=4XvOWuIPSOmCCfEfFI8UVA), in order, and maybe guess at how the chapters are going to unfold.

Bitty hasn’t seen Jack in two days.

 

This is through no fault of his own. After regaining the feeling in his limbs, he had shuffled to Jack’s door and hovered there with the intent of knocking. He had then thought it would be better to clear his head before the inevitable confrontation, so he detoured to the shower and washed his hair. He didn’t realize how long he was in there for until the spray started shooting out cold and unforgiving, making him yelp and scramble for the knobs. There were still suds in his hair, so the next few minutes were spent with him bending in the most inventive way he could manage, to prevent the trickle of water he deigned to turn on from touching his shivering body. If this maneuver was accompanied by the music of an unrelenting groan caused by cold, at least no one in the apartment was likely to come to investigate.

 

With clean hair and a renewed vigor from the water, Bitty had dried himself off and wrapped a towel around his waist, shuffling down the hall with his arms full of his dirty clothes. He made a detour to dump them in the laundry basket by the washer, then progressing on to his own room – which, as fortune would have it, put him in front of Jack’s room. Jack’s room, and its stoically closed door, with not a peep uttering from within.

 

Bitty had stepped toward it, and had gone as far as raising his hand to knock, before the memory of Jack’s hot mouth on his own rose ferociously in his mind’s eye. It was accompanied by the sensation of his stomach flopping over on itself. With newly tingling lips and a situation introducing itself beneath his towel, Bitty had backed into his own room and closed the door as quietly as possible. He had employed the same principle to the slightly frantic masturbation which followed, biting any noise into his fist.

 

The next morning, Jack had already left, and Bitty was supposed to be helping to make dozens of pretentious hors d’oeuvres for dozens of pretentious fundraiser attendees (shoe every child!), so it was with a keep cup full of coffee and a spare glance to Jack’s door that Bitty left the loft.

 

Late that night when Bitty had arrived home, Jack was still an absentee. He happened to pass a leaving girl, willowy and tall with a pile of blonde dreadlocks on top of her head. He had given her a terse smile, and shut the door behind her. Holster and Ransom were adorning the couch and watching _An American Tail_ while Ransom interrogated Holster’s love life, so Bitty had joined them.

“Was she wearing shoes when you brought her here?”

“What? Uh, no. She said shoes impede her connection to the earth.”

“Oh my god, Holster. Was she washed?” Bitty put in, wrinkling his nose.

“Can I just interject to say – those dreads? Nasty.”

“Dreads, Holster. A shoeless white lady with dreads.”

The conversation had petered off, and Bitty had been shaken awake some time later, apparently after falling asleep on Ransom’s shoulder. He trailed to his room, and when next he woke, it was to his alarm blaring and a reminder that he would be making sandwiches for a ladies’ luncheon all morning. Even with the sun barely up, Jack’s door had been wide open with no trace of the man himself to be found.

 

Bitty had fed finger sandwiches to a seemingly endless sea of hairspray-laden, pearl-encrusted, Chanel-suit-wearing women for his entire afternoon, encroaching onto the evening, and had returned home to find that Jack’s door was still open, and he was still making Bitty question whether he had ever been real.

 

He had turned on his heel and returned to his car, only stopping once to pick up a bottle of rosé, before landing himself at Shitty and Lardo’s door. Shitty is the one to answer, following a furious bout of knocking.

 

“Jack kissed me and I haven’t seen him in two days.”

Shitty makes a sharp intake of breath, mouth gone slack and eyes gone wide. They stare at each other for seconds that seem to stretch into minutes. Bitty doesn’t breathe the entire time. Shitty seems to be holding his breath as well, because he suddenly exhales, if only to yell at near top volume, “What the fuck?”

 

The exclamation brings Lardo from within the depths of the apartment, skidding to Shitty’s side in sock feet and fixing Bitty with an expectant look. She is joined, quickly, by Camilla, also wearing socks and as curious an expression as she may be capable of.

 

Unfortunately, it also summons their across-the-hallway neighbor. Bitty turns to look at the sound of her door opening, finding he is being watched with a close-to-joyous expression.

“Well, would you look at that? It’s like a party out here!”

“It’s not a party, Mrs. Pritchard,” Lardo chimes in, loudly and flatly.

“We haven’t met before, my love,” Mrs. Pritchard steamrolls on, shuffling out of her apartment and extending a hand to Bitty, “I’m Katherine. I’ve been telling these young people to call me Kitty, but they’re just too polite! Raised right, I’ll tell you.”

“Oh, I assure you that we weren’t,” Shitty puts in with a false chuckle, pulling Bitty away from Mrs. Pritchard and ushering the others back into the apartment. “Nice to see you, Mrs. Pritchard. Say hi to your turtle for us.” He wedges the door shut even as Mrs. Pritchard starts to make some reply. He leans back against it and blows out in a way that makes the hair hanging loose from his ponytail ruffle. “Once we invited her inside and she didn’t leave for six hours. She ate all our Cap’n Crunch.”

 

Shitty leads the way back into the living room, Bitty trailing after him a little listlessly, Lardo with her hands on Camilla’s shoulders to steer her towards the armchair. With Lardo situated on Camilla’s lap, Bitty throws himself next to Shitty on the couch and lets loose a sigh that has been building ever since Jack stepped away from his mouth.

“I know you’re going through something right now, but can I just say again, more emphatically: what the actual, literal fuck?”

Bitty throws an arm over his eyes.

“I told you. He kissed me, and now he’s missing. He’s probably gone to ground out of mortification. He’ll be living in a cave until time ravages all memory of me.”

“How was it?” Lardo pipes up, and Bitty moves his arm slightly to squint at her. Both she and Camilla are watching him with eerily twinned, impassive expressions. He tuts at them.

 

“It was fine. It was good. He just kind of… he grabbed me, and pulled me against him. I could feel his stubble around my mouth. He made me feel like the Fourth of July fireworks were going off inside my body, but that’s not the point.”

Lardo emits an extended “damn,” while Shitty whistles lowly and Camilla outright moans.

“That’s the stuff,” she says, biting her lip. “Guy kisses like a damn fisherman greeting his wife after months at sea.”

Bitty gestures towards her.

“She gets it.”

“But how – was it like, firm? Was his tongue –” Lardo starts, and Bitty cuts across her.

“It was so firm I feel like he imprinted himself onto my lips. It was like, forceful, and – and, passionate, and then it was tender.”

“And now he’s AWOL?”

“Can someone open this wine for me? It’s not chilled, but you can just put, like, eight-to-ten ice cubes in the glass with it.” Shitty obliges, trailing off to the kitchen with the bottle, leaving Bitty in the capable hands of Camilla and Lardo.

 

“He did mention to me he was in to guys,” Camilla offers, hand idly threading through Lardo’s hair. “In passing. Just a sort of throwaway comment.”

“Well it’s good to know he wasn’t having a fucking aneurism, I suppose,” Shitty chimes in from the next room.

“This is positive though, right?” Lardo puts in, broad and dry. “You did say you wanted to get up on that.” Bitty sputters a little, gratefully snatching the wineglass which Shitty offers him on return from the kitchen. The ice cubes clink inside as he thirstily takes a gulp.

“I said I was attracted to him, in a superficial and surface-based way. Have I had dreams about licking his abs? Yes. But he still makes me so mad. Did you know I found him trying to whisk eggs with a spoon the other day? And he actually put protein powder into his omelet. I just – he’s completely –”

“You’re obsessed with him.” Bitty hates how level Lardo’s voice is. He makes a noise like _tchah!_ in response, and gulps down more wine.

 

“I don’t fully see how this is a bad thing,” Shitty muses, sprawling across the couch next to Bitty and knocking their knees together. “It seems like an invitation to, I don’t know, just fuckin’ bang one out. Get it out of your system.”

“’Bang one out’?” Bitty repeats, incredulous. “Exactly how wanton do you think I am?”

“Wanton enough to drink your way through a bottle of wine, just because someone kissed you. Like a GD fourth grader.” Bitty buries his scowl in another mouthful of wine.

“Even if I did want to have sex with him –” he gets a chorus of unimpressed “if”s as interjections – “it doesn’t matter, because like I said, he’s missing. He has absconded without so much as a note.”

“Who are you, Elizabeth Bennet? Just fuckin’ text him or something. Like, ‘hey, Zimmermann. You, me. Sexy times.’”

 

\---

 

Bitty doesn’t text Jack. What he does do, is drink the rest of his wine and call a Lyft to get home, with a view to picking up his car in the morning. He fumbles his keys at the door to the loft, dropping them completely and sighing heavily as he squats to pick them up. And then the door opens, and he is looking at a pair of yellow-trainer-clad feet. He follows the attached legs up, and finds Jack looking down at him with an inscrutable expression.

“Bittle,” he says, and doesn’t continue.

“You’re back,” Bitty observes from the ground, clutching his keys a little too hard and feeling them dig into his palm. Jack’s brow furrows slightly.

“I didn’t go anywhere.”

“I haven’t seen you in two days.” The statement comes out just the wrong side of petulant, and even to Bitty’s drunk ears sounds needy. He holds back a wince, and settles from his squatting position into a kneel. He doesn’t have the wherewithal to stand at the present time.

“I was on the night shift. Late nights, early mornings, eh?” This time, Bitty does wince, closing his eyes and hanging his head briefly. His mortification is building, and Jack keeps talking. “It’s good you’re home. I didn’t want to do this over text.”

 

Bitty squints up at him, finding it a little hard to focus. The wine is hitting him hard.

“Can you – do you want to come in?” Jack asks, tone bordering on uncertain. Bitty sighs, and hauls himself to his feet by way of a sloppily executed downward-facing-dog. On his feet, he grips briefly into the door jamb to steady himself. Jack doesn’t seem to notice anything wrong, simply holding the door open and allowing Bitty to pass. Bitty makes to wobble his way to the couch, before Jack clears his throat.

“Could we go to my room? Nothing implied, just – ah, Ransom or Holster could come out, and I don’t want – I mean, interruptions…” He trails off, and from the way he swallows and a muscle jumps in his jaw, it somehow makes it through Bitty’s alcohol-foggy brain that he is nervous about something. Most likely, that he’s going to have to let Bitty down gently. That he’s going to have to reveal that the kiss was an aberration and a mistake.

 

Bitty trails after him, scuffing his feet a little and feeling a bit as though he could topple over at the slightest provocation. Jack holds this second door open for Bitty, and gestures vaguely to his bed as he shuts it behind them. Bitty perches on it gingerly, fingers still curled around his keys as he rests his hands on his knees and tries to sit up straight. Jack, for his part, stays near to the door, folding his arms and hunching his shoulders a bit. One of those typical silences builds between them, and Bitty bites at his bottom lip. Jack clears his throat.

 

“I’m sorry for kissing you.” He lets is hang there a moment, eyes darting from Bitty to some innocuous point in the room. “It was… dumb.”

“Dumb?”

“I should’ve asked.”

“Asked?”

“You did kiss me back, but it was still kind of rude.”

“I did?”

Jack stares at him.

“Is something wrong? Just cause you’re kind of repeating things I’m saying. Are you having a stroke?”

“I want to have sex with you,” Bitty blurts, and it seems to echo off the walls for a moment. He feels his mouth fall open afterwards, like it thinks he might be able to suck the words back into it. Jack doesn’t immediately respond, though he does unfold his arms and his hands make a strange little spasm at his sides.

 

“You want what?”

“Now who’s repeating stuff?” Bitty can hear the slur in his words, and wonders idly for a moment if Jack can too.

“I kind of just – I mean. Are you sure? Just because I kissed you, you don’t have to feel – it’s no pressure.” It is probably as close to rambling as Jack is capable of. Even as he says it, though, he’s edging closer to Bitty, short sort of shuffles that bring him closer to the bed.

“Yeah,” Bitty insists, nodding and leaning back on his hands in as seductive a pose as his body will seem to allow him to make. “I want you to get up on me, Jack Zimmermann.”

 

Jack shakes his head briefly as a quizzical look flits across his features, but he still ventures forward, and soon he’s bearing down on Bitty, leaning close and Bitty’s eyes are fluttering closed –

“Why do you smell like alcohol?”

“I don’t. You do.”

“No, that’s you.” Jack must straighten up, because the warmth of him is suddenly gone again. Bitty squints up at him to find he has resumed his folded-arms stance. “Are you drunk?”

“I had one glass of wine. Two. One bottle. I had a bottle of wine. I thought you had run away from home!”

“Adults don’t run away from home. I was at work. Why are you drunk?”

“Because you kissed me!” It comes out at a near yell, and it really does echo off the walls. Bitty waits, certain it will bring a nosy Holster or Ransom to bang on the door. When no one comes, he looks down at his feet, one of them tapping quickly without his permission. “Because you kissed me,” he says again, this time at a whisper. “Why did you kiss me?”

 

“I don’t know,” Jack hedges, hard and defensive. Bitty still doesn’t look at him. “We shouldn’t talk about this now. We should wait until you’re sober.” Bitty scoffs.

“That’s so typical. Oh, I’m Jack Zimmermann,” he says through a bad Quebecker accent, “What are feelings? Damn kids these days, with their damn crushes and their meaningful kisses. Everyone should act like a plank of wood, eh?”

“Was that supposed to be me?” It’s the trace of a laugh in Jack’s voice that gets Bitty standing up.

“Are you going to fuck me or not?” He glares at Jack with his hands fisted at his sides, and Jack stares back, calm and relaxed.

“Not like this,” he says, simply, and Bitty just about chokes. He swallows heavily, and clenches his hands. His keys are still in one of them, digging into his palm.

“Fine.” He brushes past Jack on the way to the door, and doesn’t close it after himself. What he does close is his own bedroom door, decisively and loudly.

 

\---

 

Bitty wakes with an open mouth and a crust of drool on his cheek, torso nearly hanging off the edge of his bed. He snorts as he jerks up, almost tumbling to the floor, saved only by a hand thrown out to catch at his bedside table. The hand is suddenly wet, which draws his eye to a now-nearly-full glass of water, and two Tylenol resting on a note: _Take me_.

 

He follows those instructions, albeit begrudgingly. The thought of someone – _Jack_ , his mind fills in – sneaking into his room while he slept, especially considering the state he had slept in, is a little disturbing. He washes away the thought by downing the whole glass of water.

 

He had fallen asleep in his clothes, so scuffs around his room to change into some sweats and a sloppy Dallas Stars sweatshirt, deliberately picking something which would cheese Jack off slightly.

 

Exiting his bedroom, he is met by a sudden wall of aroma; eggs and bacon, by his estimation, and the nutty scent of coffee. It’s strong, and fatty, and he bites down a gag. Trailing through to the kitchen, pulling his sleeves down over his hands, he finds that the breakfast is being cooked by Jack. Jack, apparently wearing one of Bitty’s aprons and buttering a slice of toast while bacon sizzles away in the pan next to him. As Bitty watches, the coffee machine signals its readiness, and Jack crosses to it to fill two waiting mugs. He turns to set them on the kitchen island, and finally catches sight of Bitty.

“You’re awake,” he observes.

“I didn’t know you knew we bought bacon,” Bitty retorts.

 

Jack puts down the coffees, and rubs his hands together in a strange, unconscious-seeming movement.

“You’re sober?” he asks, flat. Bitty opens his mouth to reply, his throat sticking a little. His mouth is too dry to swallow.

“I’m hungover.”

“I thought you might be.” He raps his knuckles on the wooden counter of the kitchen island, and brushes against it as he walks around and towards Bitty. “But, you’re clear headed? As clear headed as you could be.”

“As clear headed as could be expected.”

“Mmm, good,” Jack replies, a little gravelly and now quite close. He leans down towards Bitty’s mouth achingly near, but then for the second time, he reels away, this time gagging.

“It serves you right,” Bitty tells him, “but don’t do that, because then I’ll –”

Jack gags again, hand over his mouth, and Bitty finds his own stomach lurching in response.

“I’m sorry, it’s just –” gag – “you smell like –”

“I’m hungover!” Bitty protests, before gagging again. Jack makes a heaving sound, and then Bitty answers it. This is the sight and sound which greets Ransom wandering in from his room, and Holster following suit. They both pull up short, and observe the tennis match before them for a while, before Ransom comments, “The bacon is burning,” and crosses to turn off the gas.

 

Jack backs away from Bitty, retching one last time before pressing a fist to his lips and swallowing deliberately. Bitty fans at his own face, cheeks feeling hot and stomach still rolling slightly.

“Consider that action a straight-up sign from god, fellas,” Holster comments, leaning on the kitchen island with his elbows, pointing between them accusingly. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed what’s been going on here. We have also both decided that it’s a bad idea.”

“Nothing’s going on,” Jack grunts, elbowing Ransom out of the way to get at his skillet. He uses a spatula to scoop bacon out of it and onto plates waiting with slices of toast and eggs. One plate gets dropped unceremoniously in front of Bitty, along with a knife and fork. Jack follows it up by sliding one of the coffee cups towards him too, steadfastly avoiding his eyes.

“A bald-faced lie,” Holster shoots back loudly. Bitty pokes two fingers into his throbbing temple, massaging firmly.

“Please, volume. Some of us made some terrible decisions last night.”

“Oh, I’ll say,” Ransom comments wryly, stealing Jack’s cup of coffee.

“Nothing happened,” Jack mutters defensively, which goes unnoticed by both of their roommates.

 

“There is a reason,” Holster begins imperiously, “why we put the ‘No Nail Clause’ into the bylaws. Roommates should not engage in carnal relations. It’ll force someone to move out inevitably, and then we’re up shit creek in terms of rent.”

“I thought we’d all learned from the Jennifer incident,” Ransom interjects.

“That was one-sided, and I didn’t know about it until after she left.” Jack punctuates this with a large mouthful of egg.

“I’m sorry, do you attempt to sleep with all your roommates?” Bitty demands, a little high and strangled, cutlery clattering to his plate. He watches Jack struggle to swallow around his giant bite.

“Nothing happened,” Jack chokes, then snatches his coffee away from Ransom to wash it down. “I didn’t know she was in to me.”

“And so it begins,” Holster exclaims, again overly-loud. “This is how everything goes to shit. From now on, we will be enforcing chaperone rules. These two are not allowed in the same room together. Leave room for Jesus, gents.”

 

Bitty eyes Jack for a reaction, but all he sees is an uninterested shrug of his shoulder, more like a twitch than a conscious movement.

“Fine.” It’s Bitty’s turn to be loud. “It’s not like anything happened, anyway.” He silently directs his attention to his breakfast. He can begrudgingly admit that it is delicious. The conversation turns to Holster’s latest sexual conquest –  “I’m not an expert, but I don’t think sex is supposed to involve that much screeching,” Ransom comments, and Jack laughs under his breath.


	8. beautiful little macaron babies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack chooses to start stretching his legs, sinking into a lunge that pulls up his shorts in a frankly indecent way. Bitty rolls his eyes.
> 
> “Ugh, Jack. Must you?”  
> “Must I what?” He reaches up with one arm, keeping hold of his forward ankle with the other hand, stretching out his obliques. Bitty scoffs again.  
> “You’re doing this on purpose.”  
> “What am I doing?”  
> “Jack! Just… ugh.”
> 
> * * *
> 
> When Eric Bittle catches his boyfriend cheating on him in their own home, he takes to Craigslist to find replacement accommodation -- and ends up in a loft with three men, one of whom may have been put on this Earth to test him.
> 
> A Check, Please! New Girl AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Big thanks to everyone who is reading and kudosing and commenting - it makes me so happy. I especially love it when people let me know what made them laugh! This is supposed to be a romantic comedy, after all.
> 
> Constant reminder that there is a very silly playlist for this very silly fic - check it out [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/whyfrenchfry/playlist/4G4X8VW8F19imQWRua3Vxr?si=4XvOWuIPSOmCCfEfFI8UVA) for all your romcom soundtrack needs.

Jack, for some reason, is running with his shirt off.

 

Running had become one of the few roommate-sanctioned activities which Bitty and Jack were allowed to do alone together, the reason being that they would be in public, and Jack was never one to lie about physical activity. It would be fine, if not for him wearing a pair of shorts short enough to give Bitty’s a run for their money, and the said naked state of his chest. He has his shirt thrown over his shoulder, and is keeping pace with Bitty, who isn’t exactly watching where he’s going – rather, he is sneaking peeks at Jack out of the corner of his eye. His peripheral vision has always been good. It may have something to do with the size of his eyes.

 

“Negative splits,” Jack says, and Bitty almost trips. When he looks at Jack properly, Jack is looking at his watch.

“What?”

“The last four miles have been faster.”

“Well.” Bitty doesn’t know how to add to that, just yanks his gaze back to the path ahead. It’s a beautiful view, running Griffith Park. When Jack had suggested it, Bitty had balked a little bit, thinking only of the possibility of romantic sunsets viewed from the observatory. As it was, though, they were running at high noon. Bitty is sure there is a sweat patch on his back, and maybe understands why Jack chose to remove his shirt.

“That’s eight.” Jack slows from a run to a jog to a walk, linking his fingers behind his head and unknowingly pulling his lats in a way that makes Bitty want to trace them with his tongue. “Stretch.”

“I’m not one of your clients. Don’t order me around.” Even as he says it, Bitty still pulls his arm across his body to stretch out his triceps. Jack chooses to start with his legs, sinking into a lunge that pulls up his shorts in a frankly indecent way. Bitty rolls his eyes.

 

“Ugh, Jack. Must you?”

“Must I what?” He reaches up with one arm, keeping hold of his forward ankle with the other hand, stretching out his obliques. Bitty scoffs again.

“You’re doing this on purpose.”

“What am I doing?”

“Jack! Just… ugh.” Bitty chooses to ignore him, focusing instead on reaching for his toes. He leans into the burn, clasping hands around his ankles. He then hears Jack coughing, almost like he is choking on something. Bitty straightens up to find Jack hitting at his diaphragm with a closed fist.

“Maybe we should –” he gasps a little bit, voice coming out strangled – “face away from each other. Just, independent stretching.”

 

It’s somehow worse, not facing Jack and hearing him breathe steadily through his stretches, Bitty’s imagination running wild about how he might be bending himself. On the breeze, Bitty catches the clean, soapy scent of Jack’s deodorant, and the undernotes of salty sweat, and has to swallow thickly.

“I’m done,” he announces, and turns around to find that Jack is already staring at him. He blinks rapidly, taking in the part of Jack’s lips and the sheen of sweat on his chest, before squeezing his eyes shut. “Put on your shirt. Just – lord, put it on. Please.”

“Right. Yeah, sorry.”

Bitty gives him a moment, then opens his eyes. Jack’s shirt, like all of his stupid shirts, is tight and unforgiving. It is not better.

 

The silence between them stretches thin and tacky, Jack’s gaze boring into Bitty’s, and soon Bitty just has to look away.

“We decided this was a bad idea.”

“To be fair, Holster and Ransom decided it was a bad idea.”

“Hooking up with your roommate is – it’s gauche and irrational.”

There’s a pause, and Bitty looks to Jack to find him squinting into the distance.

“Right. Hooking up.”

“I mean,” Bitty tries to laugh, hands on his hips and suddenly feeling the rush of exercise endorphins pretty keenly, “it’s not like we’re in love.”

Jack nods firmly, unknowingly mirroring Bitty’s stance. He is still looking out over the vista, and Bitty watches his chest rise and fall for a while.

 

“Race you back to the car?” he suggests after it sits for a little too long, a little too heavily, and it actually makes Jack’s mouth twitch in an approximation of a smile.

 

Bitty wins the race, and by the time they crash against the car’s doors, they are both laughing.

 

\---

 

Lardo is notoriously bad at baking; when they bake together, it more takes the shape of Bitty doing all the work and Lardo sneaking tastes as he goes. Somehow, Camilla is even worse, and is a terrible influence. They both lean against hard surfaces, Lardo against the fridge and Camilla against the door jamb, lazily watching as Bitty whips up a batch of birthday macarons for Camilla’s office friend in Lardo’s unfamiliar kitchen.

“The next thing you need to do is gently fold the almond flour in to the egg whites.”

“Wait, there’s almonds in this?” Camilla’s tone is so uninflected that it may not be a question.

“Did you miss that? Did you miss the entire thing where I sifted almond flour and powdered sugar?”

“I’ve been watching Larissa.”

Bitty tuts, but does glance over his shoulder to find Lardo doing nothing particularly interesting. He redirects his attention to his mixture.

“Must be nice,” he comments loftily, “to be so interested in a person that even when they’re being boring, you still want everything to do with them.”

 

He doesn’t expect Lardo to groan with such exasperation, nor for Camilla to affect a bad British accent to say, “pull the other one.” Bitty pauses in his folding, then chooses to rain more almond mixture into the egg whites rather than saying anything.

“Is this it? Did we break him? Do we need to wind him up to start him again?”

“I’m not a toy,” Bitty snipes, testing the consistency of his batter by drawing a figure eight with his spatula. “And I don’t know why you two think you’re so clever. I have nothing going on. Not a one thing.”

“So says the liar who has a million things going on.”

 

Bitty hears himself make an uncharacteristic grunting noise, which only serves to remind him of Jack and wonder whether they have been spending too much time together. As roommates. As platonic, friendly roommates.

“Why aren’t you upset about breaking up with George?” Lardo asks. It’s sharp, and pointed, and makes Bitty drop his spatula into the bowl.

“I’d forgotten he existed,” Camilla tacks on. Something like shame prickles its way down Bitty’s neck.

“I am upset,” he hedges, deigning to turn around to face them, leaning against the counter and wrapping his arms defensively around his middle. “I got cheated on. It’s humiliating.”

“So why do you sound like a robot right now? Like a weird, Southern house robot. Beep beep, bless your heart. Beep, oven at 400 degrees.”

“I’m upset!” Bitty insists, stopping short of stamping his foot.

“Cool down, Whiplash.”

“It was only – it wasn’t a big deal. Clearly. I don’t even think we talked about what the relationship was. It didn’t matter.”

“He was your rebound.”

Bitty snorts.

“What am I, some frat Chad? Bruh, bruh, get some stank on it.” He pitches his voice low and slow, his best imitation of a typical jock.

“There are a lot of voices going on in here today,” Camilla intones quietly. Bitty takes it as a cue to start spooning his macaron mixture into a waiting piping bag. Unfortunately, Lardo doesn’t seem finished with her interrogation.

 

“You have been obsessed with Jack ever since you met him. You talk about him literally every time we meet up. You can’t keep pretending that it’s just a physical thing. Your stupid thing about hating him is just – just, stop being a weenie.”

Bitty turns to glare at her.

“Did you just call me a weenie?”

“Yeah, I called you a weenie. Ya weenie.”

“I’m not a weenie!”

“That’s exactly what a weenie would say.”

Bitty twists his piping bag shut, pushing the batter down to the end of the nozzle.

“You don’t understand this situation at all,” he says, feeling the echo of an argument he has already had. “He just wants a hook up. It doesn’t matter if I think he’s got hidden depths that reveal themselves at surprising times and make you realize how gentle and caring he actually is. It doesn’t matter that I get the urge to burrow into his side every time we’re watching a movie together. He made it pretty clear that he doesn’t want more than a sexy fumble in the dark.”

“Did he say that, though?” Camilla drawls, and Bitty pipes his first disc of macaron.

“Oh ho, the way he kissed me spoke pretty loudly.”

“Yeah, but did he say that though?”

Bitty ignores her, focusing his attentions on piping perfect circles.

“My beautiful little macaron babies,” he murmurs, hoping that the difficult conversation is well over.

“Aren’t they my babies? I’m going to tell everyone I made them, so. My secretly adopted children. Like this is the 1940s and I’m ashamed that I’m barren.”

 

Bitty taps the tray of piped macarons on the counter, forcing out the imperfections. It seems apt.

 

\---

 

Ransom and Holster are arm wrestling on the coffee table when Bitty arrives home. He decides to join them, taking the time to spread a blanket and a cushion out on the couch to avoid touching the fabric. Even Jack’s steam clean hadn’t seemed to be enough to cure it of whatever affliction turned it that color in the first place.

 

Ransom slams Holster’s arm down to the table, and whoops in victory.

“Six over four, bruh. You have to say ten nice things about me now.”

“You two are adorable,” Bitty sighs, falling back into his constructed nest and pulling another cushion into his lap to hug close.

“We’re grown men,” Holster defends, “We’re not adorable.” After a moment, he concedes, “We’re cute.”

“I think you should start with something about my appearance,” Ransom instructs Holster, gesturing a hand down his general person, “and then move on to how much you love my personality.”

 

“You know what I love?” Bitty cuts across, voice louder than he was intending. He leans into it. “How you said you weren’t the nosy one, but you’ve been happy sticking your nose in my love life.”

“I think ‘love life’ is a bit of a stretch,” Ransom reasons, just a little apologetically. “We could maybe call it ‘your sex life.’ Or, like, ‘your slow and maddening seduction by a failed hockey player.’”

“You’re still being a Nosy Nelly, and I hate to be harsh, but – I just don’t appreciate it.”

“That’s harsh?” Holster mutters, hauling himself to his feet to wander off to the kitchen.

“Having sex with your roommate is just a bad idea. For one, you’re living together, and if things go sour, then you’re living in an awkward, tension-filled enclosed space that makes your other roommates want to punch you both in the teeth.”

“He lived in a mixed dorm freshman year,” shouts Holster from the kitchen.

“And for two,” Ransom persists, “it means someone is inevitably going to misread the situation and think things are more serious than they are, leading to hurt feelings and someone watching _St. Elmo’s Fire_ on repeat.”

“Mixed dorm,” Holster yells again, following it up by returning with three opened beers dangling from his knuckles. He holds one out to Bitty, who takes it gingerly with a bitten lip.

 

“It’s not that we want in your business,” Holster starts, measured and as serious as Bitty’s ever seen him, “it’s just that this apartment has a delicate equilibrium and we need to, like, preserve the peace.”

“Check out those ten dollar words,” Ransom praises, offering Holster a high-five, which he accepts.

“You are an attentive bro, and you’re always there when I need you, bro. And you’ve got the kindest eyes the world has ever known, apart from my bubbe’s.” He inclines his beer towards Ransom in a toast. “That’s two.”

 

Bitty hides an impending frown in his beer, tucking his knees up to his chest. He doesn’t put anything in to the discussion that follows, over whether they watch _30 Rock_ (Holster) or rehash the _St. Elmo’s Fire_ thing (Ransom), falling instead into a tornado of Jack.

 

There have been moments, seemingly insignificant things, that have tugged on Bitty’s heart in ways he hadn’t immediately recognized. Bitten-back laughs and smothered smiles, Jack seeking him out to talk. Jack showing up for him, at Barry’s, at the bars, at the BigMart. Jack and the lemon tree. Jack, and the two soft kisses he had pressed to Bitty’s lips after practically ravaging him. The way that even after their private business had been laid bare by their roommates, he still found excuses to be with Bitty, running together and watching stupid reality TV.

 

There is a chance, just maybe, that even if Jack doesn’t notice it yet, there could be something more between them. Something bigger than just a hookup. Something more important than just a mistake made with a roommate.

 

\---

 

Bitty waits until he hears Jack’s key turn in the lock, then launches himself off the couch towards the door. It happens at an opportune moment, when Ransom is in the bathroom and Holster is grabbing a sweater from his room. Bitty yanks the door open, casts a cautionary look over his shoulder, and pushes Jack back out into the hallway.

“You,” he whispers, kicking the door shut behind him.

 

Jack appears to be making a bare attempt at surprise, keys still ready in his hand and eyebrows minutely raised.

“Me,” he agrees, and licks his lips thoughtfully. “Did you want something, or –?”

“I wanted – I want…” Bitty trails off, uncertain of how to continue. He feels a blush rising in his cheeks, and fights the urge to look away. He truthfully hadn’t thought beyond a hallway ambush. It is already pushing his comfort zone around the social niceties of confrontation. “Did you have a good day?”

“You shoved me into the hallway to talk about my day?”

“Was it good? Did you have a breakthrough with a client? Did you get someone to lift 200 pounds? I made macarons for Camilla. She and Lardo weren’t too helpful – they just kind of interrogated me about… um, silly stuff. But the macarons came out perfect, even though it’s been a while since I made them. I’m probably going to pitch my boss about the next event we do having macarons; I forgot how fun they were to make, and how satisfying. Those flawless shiny tops, that chewy texture. Mmm, macarons.”

Jack blinks at him.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve said ‘macarons’ about ten times, and you haven’t stopped moving since we got out here.”

 

Bitty supposes that’s true. He can’t seem to stop fidgeting, fixing his hair and tugging as the waist of his pants, threading his fingers together and then holding his elbow. He tries to stop, but then his foot starts tapping.

“I’m fine. No problemo here, Jacko.” He sweeps his touch over the shaved part of his hair. “Sorry I called you Jacko.”

Jack’s frown is back, accompanied by a thoughtfully bitten lip.

“That’s a good shirt,” he says, hefting his gym bag a little higher on his shoulder. “It looks good on you.”

Bitty laughs, a little sharply.

“Okay,” he chokes out, definitely blushing now, and finally allows his eyes to drop. He refocuses on Jack’s trainers – those hideous yellow ones, glaringly bright and somehow only a little scuffed despite them being Jack’s footwear of choice. “Lord, your trainers are ugly.”

 

Jack sighs in response, and Bitty watches as he shifts his weight between his feet.

“Look, I’m kind of thirsty, so if you didn’t want anything –”

He makes to step around Bitty to get into the apartment, but something in Bitty makes him throw out a hand. It lands on Jack’s chest, gently stopping him from going any further. At Bitty’s touch, Jack makes a small noise of shock.

“Please, just –” Bitty whispers, hearing the pleading in his own voice. He looks up to meet Jack’s eyes, and realizes how close they are – close enough to rise up on his toes, to hear Jack gasp in a slight and unsure way, and press his lips softly to Jack’s mouth.

 

There is a moment where Jack doesn’t move, where their lips are just resting against each other, not actively kissing, but then Bitty hears Jack’s bag and keys hit the floor, and Jack’s hands come up to cup Bitty’s jaw on both sides. Bitty fists his hand in Jack’s gym polo, and rests his other hand on Jack’s hip, and the kiss – it is gentle. It is made up of a series of short kisses, calm and sensuous meetings of lips. Jack angles Bitty’s head, and Bitty makes a little sigh of a noise, and leans into Jack’s body.

 

He doesn’t know how long they stand there for, but soon his lips are tingling and full, this time through longevity, not intensity. Bitty had never understood what people meant by kisses making them weak at the knees – but here, in this hallway, with Jack Zimmermann’s soft kisses coming and coming and coming, he feels that the only thing keeping him upright is Jack’s body against his own.

 

Jack seems to be clinging to him too, shifting his touch from Bitty’s face to his back, hands settling low and fingers brushing against the waist of Bitty’s jeans. Bitty responds by throwing his arms around Jack’s neck; he makes another of those noises, and Jack hums in response. Bitty licks delicately at the seam of Jack’s lips, and even when their tongues meet, it is slow and careful.

 

It seems like a secret, no other sound in the hall aside from their occasional quiet moans and the sweet smacks of their lips together. Eventually feeling slightly short of breath, Bitty pulls back and rests his forehead at the junction of Jack’s neck and shoulder. He inhales in as measured a way as he can manage – a goal which is compromised when he feels Jack’s large hand cradling his head, just where he knows his cowlick is.

“I didn’t know if –” he starts to say into Jack’s chest, and cuts himself off. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries again. “Is this really a terrible idea?”

“I don’t know,” Jack admits lowly, fingernails scratching slightly through Bitty’s hair. “But I don’t think – I don’t want to stop.” Bitty pulls back to look him fully in the face, arms still looped around his neck. He brushes his fingers against Jack’s hair at his nape.

“What is it? I mean… I know what I think it is, but I’ve been wrong before and I just – I want to make sure. What is this?”

 

Jack’s eyes flutter, betraying some sort of uncertainty. He scratches lightly at Bitty’s hair, apparently unthinkingly, and licks at his lower lip.

“I think I… I thought it was something else, but I think this is – I mean, I think I want this. I want you. Everything about you.”

The words seem to clutch at Bitty’s throat, stopping him from saying anything for a long moment. He feels his blush returning, and his shyness building again. Before it takes hold, he says, “I’ve wanted you for longer than I knew. All of you.”

 

A smile flickers around Jack’s mouth, a small proud flash of teeth that Bitty wants to remember.

“Will you come to my room?” Jack murmurs. “Again, nothing implied. Just… to spend some time together.”

Bitty nods, finally stepping away from Jack and trailing his hands across his shoulders and down his chest.

“Yes. Of course. I’d love that.”

 

They manage to open and close the door without a sound, edging their way towards their bedrooms and past where Ransom and Holster are watching _St. Elmo’s Fire_. Holster says, “Number ten: you always know when I need a donut and bring me one at my desk, and it reminds me that you care, bro,” and Jack takes Bitty’s hand.

 

They make it to Jack’s open bedroom door, and both of them pull up short. Jack glances inside, then back at Bitty, and startlingly, he grins. His cheekbones are slightly red, and his eyes are bright, and his smile is wide, and he tugs at Bitty’s hand, and Bitty –

 

Bitty follows him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10 Nice Things About Ransom:  
> 1\. He is attentive and always there when you need him  
> 2\. He has kind eyes  
> 3\. He has a good singing voice, and always kills karaoke  
> 4\. He can shotgun a beer with impressive speed  
> 5\. He is always down to clown  
> 6\. He can pull off a pair of white shorts  
> 7\. His recipe for tub juice is legendary  
> 8\. He checks in with old friends and doesn't let relationships die  
> 9\. He always has gum  
> 10\. He brings you donuts at work and reminds you that he cares


	9. (not) big topic brunch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’re all keeping it PG-13 in here, I hope? Seventh grade dance rules?” Holster leans into the shower to turn it on, and gets about to taking off his shirt.  
> “If we don’t leave, he will strip down and try for ‘show you me yours if I show you mine,’” Jack intones, hand on Bitty’s shoulder and directing him towards the door.
> 
> * * *
> 
> When Eric Bittle catches his boyfriend cheating on him in their own home, he takes to Craigslist to find replacement accommodation -- and ends up in a loft with three men, one of whom may have been put on this Earth to test him.
> 
> A Check, Please! New Girl AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have some free time, so I'm working hard to get this done! So here's another chapter. I'm so grateful (again) to everyone who's reading and commenting, and hope this is still silly enough to be fun, and is keeping your interest. Thanks especially to everyone who complimented the kiss in the previous chapter. I chucked another big one in here for all of you.
> 
> Second-last reminder that there is a wholly dumb romcom soundtrack available [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/whyfrenchfry/playlist/4G4X8VW8F19imQWRua3Vxr?si=4XvOWuIPSOmCCfEfFI8UVA) on Spotify, to serenade you as you read.
> 
> So close to the end! Enjoy this one, guys <3

Bitty wakes facing Jack, and even as he blearily blinks sleep away, he can see how lax and peaceful Jack’s face is. He works a hand out of the blankets, bringing it up to trace delicate fingertips down Jack’s nose and across his cheekbone. He traces his thumb under Jack’s lower lip, and gets something that may be a dreaming smile in response. His touch ends up on Jack’s chest, scratching slightly through the smattering of hair there.

 

There had been nothing implied, but by the time they had run out of words in their murmured conversation, sitting on Jack’s bed, there had been everything implied. Bitty had crawled into Jack’s lap, and then twisted to straddle his hips, and then Jack had laid back and suddenly Bitty was plastered all over his front, laughing quietly into Jack’s mouth as Jack’s hands trailed their way down to grip into his ass.

“I thought my ass was too small?”

“It’s perfect,” Jack had muttered back, craning his neck up from the bed to kiss Bitty properly, with lips and tongue and teeth, and then he was rolling over and pinning Bitty beneath him, grinding down and unambiguously moaning.

 

Now, naked in Jack’s bed and feeling that sated stretch in his muscles, Bitty shuffles a little closer and worms his leg over Jack’s thigh, still tracing along his chest. It is, again, nothing implied; he just wants to feel closer. Watching the progress of his own hand, it is a moment before he notices that Jack is watching him through sleep-lidded eyes, lazy smile around his lips.

“Morning,” he says, raspy and low, and adjusts himself to pillow his head on his hand. With the arm above the covers, he reaches out and throws it over where Bitty’s waist is. “You snore.” Bitty retracts his hand.

“No, I don’t! That is the rudest –”

“Not, like, loud. Just weird little noises.”

“I had a nightmare that Beyoncé told me she didn’t like my muffins. That’s a pretty regular one.”

“That’s a regular dream you have?”

“What else would I dream about?”

Jack doesn’t have an answer for that, just hums slightly and rubs along Bitty’s side above the covers.

 

“I’ve got to confess,” Bitty starts, unsure why he’s even saying what he’s about to say, “I’m wholly impressed that the performance lives up to the appearance.”

Jack wryly raises an eyebrow, gripping into Bitty’s side more firmly.

“Was that something you were concerned about?”

“You of all people know what I’ve been disappointed before. I was starting to think it was me.”

“It’s not you. It definitely isn’t you.”

“Be careful, or I might think you’re complimenting me, Mr. Zimmermann.”

“Never would,” Jack murmurs, but leans toward Bitty and rubs their noses together. He breathes out through another satisfied hum, trailing his fingers from Bitty’s waist to his bare shoulder. Bitty slides from under his hand, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

“Wait here,” he instructs. “I want to do something, so just – wait. Don’t move.”

 

He collects his underwear from where they’d been flung – somehow landing on Jack’s gym bag where he had dropped it – but also scoops up a discarded flannel shirt, leaving it open over his chest. Jack watches him with an amused quirk to his lips, shifting around on the bed to lean up on one arm. Bitty blows him a kiss before edging out of the room.

 

The coast is thoroughly clear, with neither Ransom nor Holster to be seen. It’s early still, perhaps too early for them to be awake, but Bitty still tiptoes through the apartment, not for the first time – but with a wholly better reason than he has had previously.

 

He has a pancake batter whipped up in a matter of moments, and a berry compote reducing on the stove. He flips the pancakes with a deft wrist movement, and sunnily hums to himself as he does it. There is also a pot of coffee percolating steadily, and he is making quick work of transferring some maple syrup into one of his small serving jugs. He has the spread arranged on a tray balanced between two hands, when Ransom wanders out of his room, yawning hugely and scratching himself through his boxers. Bitty is torn between the impulse to scuttle away as quick as possible, and his immediate reaction of halting like a rabbit, frozen with something akin to fear.

 

Ransom doesn’t even seem to notice Bitty standing there, zeroing in on the freshly-brewed coffee and cheering, “Score!” to himself. He pours himself a cup and sips it with closed eyes, seemingly savoring the taste, and Bitty can’t believe his luck. He takes a tentative step back towards the hallway, and another, and when he is around the corner and within sight of Jack’s open door, he makes a mad dash, not stopping until he is well inside and nudging the door closed. The coffee has spilled, but the pancakes appear largely safe.

 

Jack is sitting up, leaning against the headboard with his knees tented under the blanket, looking at his phone. His hair is rumpled, and a surge of heat flares in Bitty’s gut knowing that he is the one who rumpled it.

“Room service,” he announces, and Jack looks up and tosses his phone aside.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Bitty scoffs.

“I absolutely did. I have no other way of showing my affection.”

“No other way? Really?” Even through his skepticism, Jack flattens his knees and accepts the tray being laid across them. Bitty climbs up onto the bed next to him, leaning on his shoulder slightly.

 

“Thank you for this puddle of coffee.” Jack gets a swat to his chest for this comment.

“It wasn’t my fault. Ransom came out of his room, and I had to run before he saw me. I haven’t waited since college.” That job had been short-lived, and had required a starchy shirt-and-black-tie uniform and constant repetition of the phrase, “Crab cakes?”

 

Jack doesn’t start eating. He seems content to sit by Bitty and turn his face into Bitty’s hair, which Bitty has the odd feeling he might be smelling. He is vaguely grateful for washing his hair the previous day.

“Why do you always smell so good?” Jack murmurs, punctuating it with a kiss to Bitty’s forehead. This level of sweet, considered attention had been thoroughly unprecedented, yet is wholly welcome. Bitty makes a slightly strangled laugh, fighting against the warmth in his face.

“It’s maybe my shower gel. It’s supposed to smell like peaches, which I’m not too sure about, but I saw it and couldn’t pass it up. I’m a walking cliché, but you put a peach in front of me and I’m immediately filled with a disturbing amount of state pride. I’m liable to start talking full Georgia boy, as if I didn’t do that enough –”

Jack cuts him off with a kiss. It is close-mouthed and fleeting, but Bitty feels his lips puckering as though to chase it. It is grounding, somehow, to remember that what Jack had said last night was real and true. They look at each other for a long moment, Jack’s expression characteristically unreadable.

“If you don’t start eating that breakfast, I’m going to freak out,” Bitty tells him seriously, and Jack huffs a laugh.

“Sure, bud. I’ll eat your food.” He does indeed pick up the little jug of maple syrup and pour it over everything, before cutting himself a mouthful of pancake, but it’s not enough to distract Bitty from what just happened.

“Did you just call me ‘bud’?”

Jack chews and frowns, swallowing before he tries to speak.

“It’s good. They’re good pancakes.”

It doesn’t answer Bitty’s question.

“What is ‘bud’? Like, ‘buddy’? Like we’re bros who just fooled around? Is this a ‘no homo’?”

“No –” sip of coffee – “it’s a nice thing. I swear.”

 

Bitty watches him eat a few more mouthfuls, blatantly staring. Jack doesn’t appear to notice, tucking right in to his breakfast in a way that should be making Bitty feel that weird mix of proud and turned on that he gets when his crushes enjoy his food. Instead, he is still stuck on ‘bud’, and the creeping thought that it may be –

“Was that your attempt at a pet name? A term of endearment? Was that a Jack Zimmermann sweet nothing?”

“Is there something wrong with that?” Another mouthful. Another sip of coffee. “What do you want me to call you? Eric?”

It makes Bitty snort. “Oh lord, no.”

“Alright. ‘Bittle’ it is.”

This makes Bitty lean heavier into his side, and with only a few mouthfuls of pancake left, Jack puts down his knife and winds his free arm around Bitty’s shoulders. Bitty can feel him breathing, and when Jack decisively puts down his fork and declares again that the pancakes were, “really good,” Bitty feels his heart in his mouth and can’t keep the smile from his face. He buries it in Jack’s shoulder, somehow feeling both bashful and brazen. It is really good.

 

\---

 

Bitty has to leave for work. There is a wedding that needs its duck and branzino, and Jack has to go to a doctor’s appointment (just a checkup, for his Frankenstein knee), so they brush their teeth standing next to each other and can’t help making eye contact.

 

Even after Jack spits into the sink and rinses out his mouth, he stays watching Bitty brush his teeth. Bitty meets his eyes in the mirror, quirking an eyebrow in question, but gets nothing in return. Avoiding trying to speak through the foam, Bitty finishes up and spits, leaning under the tap to swill a mouthful of cold water. He straightens, thumbing wetness from his bottom lip, and Jack is still watching him.

“You okay there, stalker?”

“Bitty.”

There is silence between them, and through the whole apartment, so quiet that Bitty thinks he might be able to hear the hum of the fridge in the kitchen. He doesn’t try to speak again, just looks into Jack’s face and feels his own eyes widen, feels his lips part slightly, and then Jack is saying, “Bitty,” again, and stepping in to kiss him.

 

His fingertips delicately graze along Bitty’s jaw before he cups it fully in his palm, angling Bitty’s head slightly as he plies Bitty’s mouth with his own. It is a second, two, three, before Bitty remembers his eyes are still open. They flutter shut, and he reaches up to slide his hand against Jack’s neck, and hears himself make the barest of moans. The sound makes Jack’s free hand come to his back, and Bitty latches on to the collar of Jack’s shirt. Their bodies are pressed tightly together, and Jack’s tongue is in his mouth. Bitty massages it with his own, sucking lightly, and feels himself being lifted softly by Jack’s grip. He goes up on his toes, leaning into Jack’s chest. Jack’s teeth scrape at Bitty’s lips. He kisses like he wants to leave Bitty with the feel of him, mouth slick and hungry, and so smooth that Bitty doesn’t realize he’s moaning again until Jack groans slightly in reply.

 

He pulls back carefully, his hand still on Bitty’s face. He uses his thumb to swipe once over Bitty’s cheekbone, and then steps away entirely. His hands go to his pockets.

“Okay, you can’t keep doing that,” Bitty half-laughs. He mostly turns it into a joke to cover his desperation; he wants to stand here all day, in the bathroom, and do nothing but _that_.

“That was just one for the road.”

“Where do you pull these lines from? Do you have someone writing for you? Are you secretly being fed things through a secret earpiece?”

Bitty makes a show of grabbing for Jack’s head, pulling it down and tilting it to look into his ears. Jack wrenches his head away with another of those huffed laughs, chucking Bitty on the shoulder. Bitty affects a gasp, and slaps a hand to the spot where Jack’s fist hit.

“No roughhousing. I don’t ‘rassle’, partner.” Jack jostles him again, as though he hadn’t heard, low laughs coming steady. He has Bitty in a sort of headlock, though pressed between forearm and chest rather than under his armpit, and the position forces Bitty to tilt his head upwards, putting him in prime position to be kissed again. If not, that is, for Holster wandering in, greeting them with, “Hello, normals” and causing Jack to let go of Bitty entirely and put a good three feet of distance between them. Bitty feels a rush of heat to his face and spike in his chest – a sort of sudden embarrassment at almost being caught, a sort of sudden shame at flagrantly disobeying the loft bylaws.

 

“We’re all keeping it PG-13 in here, I hope? Seventh grade dance rules?” He leans into the shower to turn it on, and gets about to taking off his shirt.

“If we don’t leave, he will strip down and try for ‘show you me yours if I show you mine,’” Jack intones, hand on Bitty’s shoulder and directing him towards the door. He doesn’t let go even once they’re out of Holster’s hearing and at the front door, rather sliding his hand to cup the base of Bitty’s neck, right over the knot of bone at the top of his spine.

“Have a good day, eh? Cook… euh, cook good, I guess. Do stuff with ovens and knives.”

Bitty hefts his messenger bag from the coat rack near the door, and wrinkles his nose through a laugh.

“Yup, I’ll do stuff with all the knives. Julienne and bruinoise, and maybe even some paysann.”

“When did cooking get so fancy?”

Jack reaches out, but instead of pulling Bitty into another kiss, he smooths his hand over the crown of his head – over that cowlick, traitor that it is, though Jack’s expression as he does it is a gentle and minute smile. Bitty thinks about it in his car, and thinks about the feel of Jack’s lips, and the feel of his body, and next thing he’s at the wedding venue and is having to filet a mountain of fish. He does it all with his own smile, sure and unmovable.

 

It is probably this that gets one of the other chefs sidling up to him to say, “You’re mooning.” Bitty yelps and nearly drops his knife, not having noticed anyone was close. He looks up to find Chowder hanging over his shoulder, smile fixed and expectant. Chowder, unfortunately yet appropriately nicknamed for a chef. Chowder, and his uncanny way of disarming people.

“No one enjoys branzino that much, especially when they’re going to have to pin-bone the filets after they’re cut. You’re mooning.”

“No, I just… love fish. What a great choice for a wedding with 250 guests.”

“You hate fish,” Chowder points out with suspicious narrowed eyes, gesturing to the tray of filets with his own knife. “You say it’s tacky for wedding dinners and also has no place in hors d’oeuvres.”

“I just don’t understand why they couldn’t pick something classic like filet mignon.”

“Oh, scoot!” Chowder announces, like he’s struck some kind of jackpot. “You’re mooning.”

“No scoot,” Bitty insists. “No, there is no scoot.”

“Mooning,” Chowder mouths at him, but does retreat to his own station and continue acting as saucier.

 

When it’s late in the evening and they’re wiping down their stations, Bitty is prime for another assault, which takes the relatively smooth form of Chowder leaning against Bitty’s counter and watching him clean with a fixed grin on his face. Bitty discards his cloth and folds his arms. They stare at each other for a moment, and Bitty has to look away with a laugh.

“My roommate. Let me tell you, my roommate.” He shakes his head. “It was good, I’m not going to lie. But I can’t date someone I’m living with. Can I?”

Chowder frowns slightly. “Is this Jack?”

Bitty gapes at him. “How do you know about Jack?”

“How do I know about Jack? You don’t shut up about him, is how I know about Jack. You’re always like, ‘Jack and I ran eight miles today,’ and ‘Jack helped me bake scones,’ and ‘Jack fought the crowds at BigMart with me,’ and ‘Jack is just the funniest, but no one ever gets his jokes.’ He’s strong, and gorgeous, and is in to a bunch of embarrassing white guy shit, like golf and _Breaking Bad_. I feel like I’m the one in love with him, for everything you tell me about him. I might be in love with him. Tell Farmer it was nice knowing her.”

 

Bitty mulls this over, considering it in light of what Lardo and Camilla had also said about him being obsessed. In light of the earth-shattering night he and Jack had spent together. In light of Jack’s warm smile, and also the creeping guilt Bitty has about going behind Ransom and Holster’s backs.

“Having a couple in a roommate situation, it’s – that’s imbalanced, right? What if we get to the point of living in the same room? Oh lord, what if we want to move out altogether, and then Ransom and Holster are stuck looking for two whole entire roommates? They would never speak to us again. Ransom would probably cry. He really loves my French toast.”

 

“I might be wrong, because I’ve been dating the same girl since freshman year and don’t really know about relationships when they’re like, complicated and stuff, but I feel like you’re skipping a few steps. Although it might also tell you something that you’re already imagining what a future with him is going to be like. Which is a really kind of weird thing, to be honest. Even if all the stuff you do with him is already boyfriend stuff.”

“What boyfriend stuff? Name one boyfriend stuff.” Bitty feels himself getting defensive, and readjusts his stance to wrap his arms protectively around his middle. Chowder is looking at him earnestly, that kind of unfiltered honesty that he is so good at, and Bitty feels guilty all over again for being deliberately obtuse.

 

“Running together every morning in different romantic park locations –” Chowder begins, holding up a finger as though he is going to start counting down items, so Bitty holds up his hands in placation, pleading “shush” as quickly as he can.

“You’ve been going out with him since you moved in to that place,” Chowder says firmly, looking down at Bitty with a sympathetic grimace. “You just didn’t talk about it.”

 

\---

 

Bitty is decisive in the way he hooks his bag on the coat stand and strides into the apartment. Jack, Ransom and Holster are seated around the meals table, eating bought burritos in silence. Jack is the only one who looks up when Bitty slaps his hands down on the table, regarding Bitty with a mouthful of burrito and his new fond expression around his eyes.

“Loft meeting,” Bitty announces, which still doesn’t get the attention of all three roommates. “It is ridiculous that y’all have become so reliant on me that you order food in rather than cook it for yourself.”

“Is this the first meeting item? Because as you well know, meetings have to be scheduled at least a week in advance, and you have to submit items to the agenda via the loft text chain. The only time unscheduled items can be tabled is Sunday brunch. That’s why we called it Big Topic Brunch.” Ransom directs all of this to his burrito, before taking a startlingly large bite.

“We can feed ourselves like adult boys. We just wanted burritos,” Holster bursts out through a spray of rice and beans. Ransom nods sagely, toasting Holster with his burrito.

“We have rice, and tortillas, and avocados, and we definitely have beans. We really, really have beans,” Bitty snipes, exasperated.

“I didn’t know how to do the beef,” Holster sprays again, at the same time Jack says, “We’re out of cayenne pepper.”

“One of you listens to me, at least.”

Ransom snorts. “He only listens because he wants –”

“And I want it too!” Bitty nearly shouts, slamming his hands down on the table again. Jack puts down his burrito and drums his fingers against the wood. Ransom and Holster finally look at Bitty, twinned raised-eyebrow expressions reminiscent of the first time he met them.

 

“I don’t care about your stupid no-nail oath. I don’t care about your dumb by-laws. Fine me all you want; I’ll put all my money in the sin bin! This here is a beautiful man, and I want to spend all my time with him.” There is a ringing moment without any talking, broken when Jack clears his throat. He folds his arms and stares resolutely at his half-eaten burrito. There is a little pinkness across his cheekbones, and it makes Bitty want to lay a smacking kiss right on his cheek. He realizes that there isn’t anything stopping him from doing so, so he bends and does exactly that. Jack looks up at him with an unrestrained, wild surprise.

 

Ransom takes a bite, and chews thoughtfully.

“This is, like, serious thing? You guys are really doing this?”

 

Bitty looks down at Jack, and Jack is still watching him, bottom lip bitten between his teeth. He runs his tongue over it, a quick sweep, and refocuses on Ransom and Holster.

“This is a serious thing,” he says, with a calm surety.

 

There's another of those silences, and then Ransom sighs and puts down his own burrito.

“Is that the item? Because I still feel like this is more of a Big Topic Brunch deal.”


	10. emotional intimacy is a turn-on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bitty bookmarks Zillow on his laptop and downloads the app onto his phone. He tells himself it’s just for cheap laughs; he can scroll through rental property after rental property and make snarky comments to himself, like, “Those curtains with that carpet?” and “Feature walls are over, sugar.” If he adds an apartment with a covered terrace to his favorites, or one with a communal gym in the building, it’s no one’s business but his own.
> 
> * * *
> 
> When Eric Bittle catches his boyfriend cheating on him in their own home, he takes to Craigslist to find replacement accommodation -- and ends up in a loft with three men, one of whom may have been put on this Earth to test him.
> 
> A Check, Please! New Girl AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hello hi! Long time no post. I finally got around to writing the final chapter of this silly thing, and hopefully it's worth the wait. It's maybe not as funny as the others (though I do think it has its moments), but it does have a whole lot of sappiness to make up for it.
> 
> Thank you all for reading! I hope you've had as much fun as I had. This thing was just supposed to be light and romcom-y, and from my perspective, it's pretty much exactly what I wanted to write. Let me know what you liked in the comments! And remember, there's a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/whyfrenchfry/playlist/4G4X8VW8F19imQWRua3Vxr?si=4XvOWuIPSOmCCfEfFI8UVA) for this fic, which is supposed to be just the right blend of romcom musical moments. Give it a listen while you read this last part, and enjoy!

Bitty has his thighs thrown over Stanley Cup Winner Jack Zimmermann’s shoulders. His hand is fisted in Stanley Cup Winner Jack Zimmermann’s hair, and Stanley Cup Winner Jack Zimmermann’s mouth is working its way over his dick. This has been his life for six months, and it hasn’t lost the feeling of being shiny and new. With Jack’s mouth doing what it’s doing, it’s all Bitty can do to bite his own lip and try to stifle the gasping moans that are coming quicker and quicker from his throat: they have roommates, and the walls are thin. But then Jack hums, and Bitty feels the vibrations, and he can’t help the slightly strangled groan he makes. It’s loud.

 

Jack pulls off him entirely with a small _pop_ , and says, “Shh. Do you want Holster to come barging in here again?”

“Oh my god, shut up. Don’t talk about him when you’re – just, don’t talk about him.”

“I don’t want to have to put another fifty in the sin bin,” Jack mutters, already leaning back in to press hot kisses along the length of Bitty’s cock. He uses a firm grip on Bitty’s thighs to push him further up the bed, forcing Bitty to slap his hand against the headboard to stop from colliding with it. Jack doesn’t seem to notice, wriggling closer on his stomach and dedicating himself to taking Bitty into his mouth again. Bitty’s own mouth threatens noise once more, so he throws his arm over it and bites into his wrist.

 

“I would’ve thought you were good for it, honey,” he gasps out when he thinks he can manage it, and then immediately regrets it because Jack pulls away again.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Jack gripes, hand taking the place of his lips and working its way up and down lazily. As far as Bitty is concerned, it isn’t enough. He reaches for Jack’s hair once more and tries to gently guide him back, and almost succeeds, but then Jack diverts and presses a kiss to Bitty’s hipbone.

“We should just get our own place,” he murmurs there, and Bitty doesn’t have time to do more than suck in a stuttering breath, because Jack decides to swallow him to the hilt, and it’s that which makes Bitty suddenly come with a desperate shout of, “Jack!”

 

It’s followed almost immediately by a demanding knock on the door.

“Bring your wallet when you come out, Zimmermann,” Ransom calls through the door, and Jack fixes Bitty with an unimpressed look as he slides from under Bitty’s legs to sit back on his haunches and lick his lips. For his part, Bitty can’t do more than stare at Jack from his prone position on his back, and press his palms to his burning cheeks.

“I’m sick of us giving them money. All they do is spend it on air hockey and beer at the bar.” Jack says this with a mildly disgruntled single-mindedness, which makes Bitty truly believe that he doesn’t recognize what he had just asked.

“Did you mean that?” he whispers, not trusting himself to speak at full volume. Maybe if it stays between them, he too can pretend it didn’t happen.

“Yeah. Holster thinks there’s some sort of secret prize for beating a record only he seems to know about.” Bitty blinks at him. If Jack isn’t going to talk about it, he isn’t going to either. He props himself up against the headboard, holds out his arm, and says, “Come here.” Jack goes willingly, crawling up the bed and slumping bodily against Bitty’s chest. Bitty’s hand goes to Jack’s hair again, and he chooses not to ruminate on how easily he would’ve said yes.

 

\---

 

Bitty bookmarks Zillow on his laptop and downloads the app onto his phone. He tells himself it’s just for cheap laughs; he can scroll through rental property after rental property and make snarky comments to himself, like, “Those curtains with that carpet?” and “Feature walls are over, sugar.” If he adds an apartment with a covered terrace to his favorites, or one with a communal gym in the building, it’s no one’s business but his own. If he goes along to an open home and makes a show of testing the water pressure in the shower, it’s again a private, personal matter that affects no one else in the loft. That is, until he comes home from work and finds Jack sitting on his bed, holding a rental application in his hands and frowning at it. Bitty has come to recognize this particular frown as being one of confusion. He sighs through his nose and grits his teeth, closing the bedroom door and leaning up against it. Only when the door closes does Jack look up.

“When did you go to this house?”

“It’s an apartment. In Los Feliz. It has granite benchtops.” He bites down on his tongue immediately after saying this, lest he blurt out anything else stupid. Jack just nods, frowning at the application again before setting it slowly and carefully on the bed beside him. He leans forward to put his elbows on his knees, and directs a slightly raised eyebrow at Bitty. It shouldn’t be a rakish pose, but it is. Bitty leans heavier against the door, and barely stops himself from dropping to his knees and apologizing for whatever hurt he has obviously caused.

 

But then, Jack says, “Why didn’t you ask me to go with you?” and Bitty directs another sigh, this time of relief, to the ceiling.

“Oh my lord. I thought for a second you were going to freak out.”

“Who says I’m not freaking out? My boyfriend doesn’t want my help picking a house for us. That’s pretty… it’s pretty fucking weird, Bits.” He licks his lips, and frowns at the floor. “Do you not want – I mean, if you wanted to, by yourself, then uh… I thought when I asked you, it seemed like you were on board.” These are broken threads of sentences, and Bitty has to take a long moment to process what Jack is saying and fill in the blanks. When he puts it all together, it gets him crossing the distance between them and dropping to his knees, cupping his hands around Jack’s clasped ones. Jack looks at him, expression blank and unreadable.

“Sweetheart, you’re so dumb,” Bitty tells him.

“You’re dumb,” Jack retorts, seemingly on reflex.

“For the record, you didn’t actually ask me anything.”

“I did. I said, ‘we should move in together.’ That’s asking. And you agreed. You said yes.”

“No, I didn’t. I asked you to cuddle with me. I didn’t even know what you’d said was a question! I thought you didn’t mean it. Throwaway comment.”

“I don’t make throwaway comments.” Bitty chews on that for a moment.

“No you don’t, do you?”

 

They look at each other, Bitty on his knees and Jack leaning forward, before Bitty leans up and presses a soft kiss to Jack’s lips. Jack makes a small noise, and when Bitty pulls away, his eyes are still closed.

“Sweet-pea, do you want to move in together?”

“Yeah. Yes. Of course. I love you.”

 

Bitty feels his eyes widen. He tightens his grip around Jack’s hands, still looking into Jack’s face, enough to notice him wince and drop his gaze.

“Oh god, we haven’t said that yet, have we? You haven’t – we’ve decided to move in together, and we haven’t said that.” It seems ridiculous, and doesn’t make sense, and Bitty almost can’t believe that it’s true. He has felt it, in every touch, every look, for the past six months. He once said that he and Jack weren’t in love, but – they have been. They are. They will be.

“You don’t have to say it back.” Jack may sometimes be quiet, but he never sounds small. There’s a tinge of regret around his words, and it makes Bitty’s stomach clench.

“I think I’ve loved you since I first saw you,” he blurts. “You hated me, and I loved you.”

“I didn’t hate you.”

“You did, but it’s fine. I know now that you hate all strangers. But I got you to fall in love with me. You’ve made up for it.” Bitty rises up on his knees and slides his hands up Jack’s chest to rest on his shoulders. This time it’s Jack who kisses him, resting his hands on Bitty’s hips and tugging slightly to pull Bitty closer to the bed.

“We’re doing this out of order,” Jack mutters against Bitty’s lips, and Bitty laughs softly, and there is a knock on the door.

“Bitty, are you cooking dinner? Because if not, we’re going to go get Roscoe’s.”

“They’re going to die without me,” Bitty leans back to tell Jack seriously. “Give it a month and they’ll be dead and rotting on that couch. Their bloodless skin will merge with the fabric, and the paramedics will have to cut them from the cushions.” Jack wrinkles his nose.

“You can be really morbid sometimes, you know that?”

“Bitty,” Holster calls again, with more insistent knocking, “are you feeding us?”

 

Bitty sighs for a third time, and uses his grip on Jack’s shoulders to push himself to standing.

“You don’t have to cook for them,” Jack tells him, reaching for Bitty’s hand as he steps away and attempting to pull him back between his own legs.

“I have to butter them up. When we tell them we’re moving, they may never speak to us again.” Jack’s mouth becomes a hard line, and he drops Bitty’s hand, nodding once. When Bitty opens the door, he is pulled into a headlock by Holster, his hair roughly tousled and punctuated by a crow of approval as he is directed towards the kitchen. He casts one last desperate look back to Jack, and gets a wry smile in return, eyes soft and doting. It makes something in his chest flutter, and he protests his way out of Holster’s grip with his own smile.

 

\---

 

They make an appointment to view another apartment, together, in Echo Park. The house is horrifying, with green and brown shag carpeting and flocked wallpaper in the same colors. The ceiling is wood paneled. Bitty barely hides his disgust, making passive aggressive comments like, “This is an interesting tile choice!” and “I’m sure salmon laminate in kitchens was a very on-trend choice at some point.” The realtor wears a red skirt suit and waxes philosophical about the soundproofing (“You could scream bloody murder, and no one would hear you!”) and the lighting (“Don’t let the facing building fool you”), until Jack asks, “Can we have a moment?” and pulls Bitty into the master bedroom, closing the door behind them. Bitty barely has a second to say, “God, is that a mirror on the ceiling?” before Jack is crowding in close and pushing him up against the door, kissing him hot and frantic like the first time. Bitty makes a small “mmph,” before closing his eyes and giving himself over to the kiss, hands spanning Jack’s lower back, thumbs edging up under his t-shirt. He feels Jack pressing against him, burgeoning hardness prompting itself just above Bitty’s hip. He ducks away from Jack’s mouth and looks into his eyes.

“Are you – is this apartment turning you on?”

“No,” Jack hedges, making to recapture Bitty’s mouth. Bitty’s turns his face away.

“Is it this? Is it this relationship milestone? Are you getting hard from emotional intimacy?”

“What else am I supposed to get hard from?” Jack enquires into Bitty’s neck, scraping his skin with gentle teeth.

“Nope. Nuh-uh. This isn’t happening here. That realtor has the same haircut as my mama.” He pushes Jack away gently, and opens the door a crack. “Pull yourself together, Jack Zimmermann,” he drawls lowly, and edges his way out of the room.

“I just don’t know what I can do with this little bench space,” he proclaims to the realtor, and makes their excuses while Jack presumably wills away his erection. His eyes are still dark when he joins Bitty at the front door, and he slides his hand into Bitty’s back pocket on their way to the car.

“You’re incorrigible,” Bitty tells him, but does climb over the gear shift from the driver’s seat to straddle Jack’s lap, and pulls the release on the seat back so that Jack is nearly fully reclined. He grinds himself against Jack like a teenager while kissing along his jaw, and thinks about a fantasy apartment with miles of kitchen bench space, airy open windows, and face-height shelf space in the bathroom. This moment, this milestone, what they are approaching together – it turns him on too.

 

\---

 

They go to three more open apartments, and have sex in the car after each one, and although Bitty collects applications from them all, neither of them intend to fill them out. They float around the loft, forgotten as soon as the pair of them cross the threshold, left on the coffee table or the armoire or the kitchen bench. This poses a problem when they arrive back at the loft one day, Jack plastering himself over Bitty’s back and wrapping his arms around his front, trying to start again what Bitty thought they had finished in his back seat, and they are greeted by Holster hollering, “Fine!”

 

He and Ransom are standing in front of the couch, Ransom clutching some papers in his hands, and Bitty knows that he and Jack realize what has happened at the exact same time: Jack drops his arms and moves to stand at Bitty’s side, and he hears himself make a small groan of a noise.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Jack says, hard and defensive. Holster scoffs noisily.

“It looks like you two have been secretly shopping around for a little love nest, and are dumb enough not to hide the evidence.” Ransom brandishes the application forms, and Bitty bites back a wince.

“It’s a little what it looks like,” Jack concedes, and Bitty winces for real.

“Well, joke’s on you Zimmermann; you’re not moving out. We’re moving out,” Holster announces triumphantly, folding his arms.

“What are you talking about? No you’re not. We’re moving out.” Bitty mirrors Holster’s stance, hearing his tone come through exasperated.

“No, we are,” Ransom maintains.

“ _No,_ ” Bitty insists, “we are.”

“We are.”

“We are!”

“What do you mean?” Jack cuts in. “When did you decide this?”

“The commute is getting annoying, and one of the women in accounts is vacating her two bedroom to move to Seattle. It’s literally a block from the office. We could walk to work. Gotta get those 10,000 steps.” Ransom holds up his hand, and Holster high-fives it without looking. “We were going to raise it at Big Topic Brunch.” Bitty and Jack exchange a look, Jack’s a raised eyebrow and Bitty’s an eyeroll.

“Why do I get the feeling that you two are going to live together forever?”

“Because we are. When I get married, my wife and I are going to have the basement converted for Holster.”

“Why am I the basement bro? Me and my wife will give _you_ somewhere to live. You’ll have a curfew and a chore list.”

 

“So we’re all leaving? This is it?” Jack asks no one in particular, and Bitty slides an arm around his waist.

“Well, honey –” Jack looks down at him – “what if we –”

 

\---

 

The apartment is the kind of place Bitty had imagined as a fifteen-year-old, dreaming of getting out of Georgia: an exposed brick wall; large open-plan living space; a kitchen island that beckons with all the allure of a white-sand beach with palm trees and Stanley Cup Winner Jack Zimmermann spread out beneath an umbrella.

 

Every corner of the apartment is filled with the smell of a baking pie, the child-sized hockey goals have been replaced with a bookcase overflowing with biographies and cook books, and the couch on which Bitty sits is upholstered in tan leather. He has Jack’s head pillowed in his lap, is threading his fingers through Jack’s hair, and Jack lazily hooks his own fingers in the collar of Bitty’s shirt to tug him down into a sideways kiss. Their friends are coming, soon: Ransom and Holster, and their new girlfriends; Lardo and Camilla, fresh from a month-long trip to Kenya; Shitty and a case of beer; Chowder from Bitty’s work, and potentially his pregnant wife. It feels silly, holding a housewarming a year after Bitty moved into the loft. But here they are, in this house, and it is warm – filled with things that are theirs, with a bedroom they share, and new cabinets installed in the bathroom.

“What are the chances of someone having bought us a Le Crueset pot, do you think?”

Jack snorts softly. “I think you’re overestimating all their paychecks.”

 

Jack still does the laundry, and vacuums the whole apartment, and takes out the trash. Bitty cooks, and scrubs the bathroom, and tends to their rooftop garden. The lemon tree is bearing fruit, which Bitty picked and zested and juiced and turned into the lemon meringue pie turning golden in the oven.

 

He is bending over Jack’s face, tilting his jaw up and kissing him soft and careful, when the door is thrown open and Holster announces their mass arrival by shouting, “Pants up, boys.” Jack groans and hauls himself to his feet, and Bitty follows suit. Their friends swarm in as though they own the place – and in some sense, they do, even though it’s rented and even though none of them live there anymore. Bitty remembers what first made this home for him: baking with Ransom, watching reality TV with Lardo, doing shootouts with Holster, drinking on the roof with Shitty. Jack, in the bathroom. Jack, in the laundry. Jack, in his room and Bitty’s room and their room. Jack, in every corner. He smiles at Jack now, and slots himself into Jack’s side, and wraps his arm around Jack’s waist.

 

“Come in, y’all,” he says. “Make yourself at home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please feel free to leave a comment ⊂(▀¯▀⊂)


End file.
